


Devil's Advocate

by Biblio (Heyerchick)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Drama, First Time, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 17:22:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 54,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12964515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heyerchick/pseuds/Biblio
Summary: Slash: 	Jack and Daniel involved in a loving and committed relationship, which usually involves sex.Rating: 	NC-17Category: 	Angst.  Drama.  First Time.  Friendship.  Hurt/Comfort.Season/Spoilers: 	Season 5.  Spoilers for Seasons 1-5.  Politics.  Need.  Legacy.  Shades of Grey.  Divide & Conquer.  Failsafe.  Menace.  The Sentinel.Synopsis: 	When Daniel's belief in himself and his place in the team are shaken to the core, can Jack help him find his true voice again?Warnings: 	Angst and ambiguity make this quite dark in tone.





	1. Part One

Jack was simply there at Daniel's side, leaning over him as he shook his thin blanket out over Daniel's, then he was sliding beneath the doubled covering to stretch out with him on the narrow pallet.

"Was I making noise?" Daniel whispered drowsily as he obligingly hitched closer to the wall to make room for Jack.

"You were quiet," Jack whispered back, wryly conscious of Daniel's affectionate, unquestioning acceptance of him just turning up out of the blue and climbing cosily into bed with him.

"I'm not cold," Daniel lied proudly even though his bones ached with it.

"I am.  My knees hurt so much I can't stand it."  This was a miserable fact of his life which Jack hated to admit to himself let alone anyone else but he needed to be right here and this got him what he needed.  Daniel.  Compassion wasn't always a strength and the closer you got to a person, the more buttons you learned how to push.  "I'm fucking old," he grumbled with some honesty.  His health was weather contingent, for Chrissake.

At this, Daniel put his arms around Jack and held him tightly.  "I'm sorry, Jack," he murmured regretfully.   "This was my screw-up."

"How'd you figure that?" Jack slid his arms around Daniel and hugged him close.  "You had no way to know hostage-taking was plain good business practice here on Planet Hell.  As in, it's the only way these scum can get anyone to do business with them, what with all those awkward questions bound to come up sooner or later from any species which doesn't collectively have its head up its ass.  Anyway, last time I looked, telepathy wasn't on either of our job descriptions."

"Ehle was executed.  His deadline was up two days ago," Daniel whispered soberly.  "I hoped, when he didn't come back, that his government met the price the Mirin set for him.  Before him, it was Shelee from two cells down."

"Daniel."

"It's our deadline tomorrow, Jack."

"And our government doesn't negotiate with mass-murdering hostage-takers," Jack sing-songed rapidly.  "I know."  It was why he was here.  Everything had been stripped away from him in the past few weeks of their incarceration on Mirin.  Everything.  All the rules, the regs, the lies and compromises.  All his pretence and his deals with himself.  Even the guilt he had for getting the two of them into this mess.  All that was left for him was Daniel and feelings he wouldn't deny any longer.  The desperation of this literal last chance was going to his head like wine, leaving him giddy and euphoric.

"I'm too cold to be afraid," Daniel insisted quietly, contradicting his earlier claim, in case there was any doubt - in case Jack doubted him.

"There's always a chance," Jack suggested uncomfortably, unable to meet the wide blue eyes fixed on his.  It was never more than twilight in the cells, never wholly night or day and so goddamned fatally easy to lose track of time.  Deliberate of course, so you never knew when you were or when the Mirin were coming for you.

"A chance of what?  Escape?" Daniel demanded angrily.  "Three guards dead, Jack, in the last attempt.  Three guards and three days off the time we had to live."

There was really nothing Jack could say to this and even if there was, he hadn't come to Daniel to fight.

"A chance our President - our government - is so morally bankrupt they'll give the Mirin what they're asking for us, when they can figure out the it'll be put it to?" Daniel demanded passionately.  He looked at Jack, really looked at him, dark eyes glittering feverishly, a flush on his cheeks standing out starkly against the pallor.    "That's what you're afraid of, isn't it?" he breathed, appalled.  "Oh, they couldn't, Jack.  They couldn't," he insisted, clutching at a broad shoulder, as if to shake sense into Jack.

"Hammond couldn't," Jack offered the only assurance he could.  "But ultimately it isn't his decision.  The Mirin will only execute us if the government won't trade."

"Weapons grade naquadah for penicillin," Daniel said dully.  "It sounds like a good deal."

"That wasn't your screw-up, Daniel, so let it go.  That one is solidly down to Carter."

"She had no idea where it would lead, Jack," Daniel argued, rallying in his friend's defence.  "The doctors seemed so concerned for their patients."  It distressed him to think about the isolation wards full of quietly despairing individuals, each of them struggling for breath.   He still couldn't wholly comprehend how he could've been so mistaken in these people, even for a short time.  The civic-minded Mirin were so caring to one another on the surface and so utterly ruthless in their service of what they deemed to be the greater good of their society, culling everyone they decided was unable to contribute to the furtherance of their people.  "I was there too, remember?" he reminded Jack bitterly.  "The medical staff seemed to be doing everything they could."

"Absolutely!" Jack agreed heartily.  "No one could've worked harder to find more efficient, effective ways to put the poor bastards out of their misery."  He brushed at a tendril of soft hair spilling down over Daniel's forehead, relieved Daniel was too upset to notice this lapse.  "A couple more years on the clock and they'd be putting me down."  There was nothing funny about that.  Jack felt his age in more than his aching bones.

"We can't do it.  We won’t," Daniel insisted.  "The President won't provide the Mirin with any means which could be used to conduct mass euthanasia."  The Mirin were worse to him than the Goa'uld, making the fullest use of their beautiful, caring religion, so family oriented and so perfectly constructed to lead the people un-protesting to their duly decreed deaths.

"The population has built up resistance to every drug they have and it all sounds so plausible on the surface," Jack said bitterly.  "Hell, they even snowed you for a while with all that talk of their vulnerability to respiratory tract disorders.  They led you right to it."

"I know," Daniel admitted with a sigh.  "We were so interested, too.  It's not as if we haven't carried infection to other planets or been infected ourselves.  Every world which uses the Stargate faces the same risks.  We've been lucky and found medicinal compounds which have been useful for our people, of course we were sympathetic to the seeming plight of the Mirin.  It actually felt good, for a while, to be able to offer something in return."

"All those patients they showed you and Carter exhibited the symptoms you expected, Daniel," Jack instantly made excuse.   "Carter just had to chatter away about Alexander frigging Fleming, antibiotics, microwhatsit resistance.  Naturally the Mirin were going to be pricking up their ears and asking exactly the right questions, the smart questions.  They've had lots and lots of practice.  And of course, sure as night follows day, Carter whips out her little laptop and helpfully gives them all the sciencey stuff too.  Physiology.  Biochemistry.  Toxicity.  Anaphylactic shock.  The full meal deal," he slowly enunciated with savage clarity.  "Not that I did any better.  Too bored to even show up for the tour.  Jesus."

His fingers moved into Daniel's hair again, smoothing the wayward, now over-long strands.   He loved to see Daniel with his hair this way, he looked so young and vulnerable, so very beautiful, the innocent impression he gave so at odds with the strong individualist Jack had fallen deeply in love with.

"You did what you're supposed to do, Daniel.  You realised something was wrong and you kept right on asking questions.  I just wish Carter and I had listened when there was still time to do something about it."

He was struck by a vivid memory of Daniel's last stormy encounter with the Mirin Conclave in the Hall of Voices, their Speaker completely losing it, his voice climbing to a squeal.

Oh, yeah.  He completely loved this guy.

"Sam didn't - we had no way to know those symptoms were deliberately inflicted," Daniel miserably reminded Jack, his fingers knotting in Jack's T-shirt.  "Microbial resistance is a huge healthcare issue on our world too.  Some infections are becoming impossible to treat.  You know that.  The tabloids are full of stories about necrotizing fasciitis."

"Flesh eating disease?" Jack commented knowledgeably.

"See!"  Daniel accusingly smacked Jack in the shoulder.

"Teal'c buys those rags," Jack sniffed disparagingly.

"You just read them cover to cover, sometimes before he does."

"Was there a point to this apart from insulting my alleged literary tastes?"  Jack was kind of enjoying the way Daniel was holding on to bits of him for emphasis and then forgetting to let go.

"The point is, on the surface, everything appeared as it should be."

"So why were you asking questions?" Jack queried.  "And why wasn't I listening?"

Daniel shifted uncomfortably at this reminder.  "All the evidence is there on the mission footage, Jack, just like it was there for you and me to see when we were escorted back through the streets from the Stargate to the off-worlders enclave.  You know I snatched a minute with Sam just before she gated through, talked it over with her.  She knows something was wrong.  She'll figure it out.  This is Sam!  We're covered.  In fact, we're lucky you sent Sam and Teal'c back to consult with Janet when you did or I - I'd be really worried!"

"As it is, you have me to thank for getting just the two of us executed in the morning!" Jack responded with insane cheeriness.

"If you're going to be sarcastic, you can freeze your ass off on your own pallet until they kill us," Daniel snapped, rallying.

"No, Daniel, I can't do that," Jack said simply,  "I really can't."  And then he lowered his head to kiss Daniel tenderly on his beautiful, haunting mouth.

Daniel's whole body violently jerked with the shock of Jack's mouth on his.  He couldn't breathe, couldn't think, the unsuspected heat of it all shaking him to the bone.  Blindly, stupefied, and trusting his friend instinctively, he let go, let himself fall into that heat, reaching urgently for Jack, wanting to be closer.

Strong, sensitive fingers clutched at Jack's face as his lips moved over Daniel's, so soft and warm beneath his.  "Wanted to do this for the longest time," he breathed against Daniel, then kissed him again.

Oh, Jack.  Oh god.  Daniel didn't know what to do with that, didn't know there was anything he could do, not with Jack kissing him, his weight shifting convulsively to pin Daniel effortlessly beneath him.  
Despite the urgency of Jack's desire for him, there was a question in the kiss, a choice.

Daniel loved his friend, loved him dearly, but still he didn't know what to do.  Jack was tender but Jack was starved, a desperation in his gentleness which felt to Daniel as if his friend really had wanted this forever.

His hand was against Jack's face, frozen with his indecision and it was taken now, a hot, moist kiss pressed against the palm.  He was shaking, maybe more than Jack was, and it seemed at the last there was really only one thing he could do, only one way to show Jack how much he meant, how much Daniel felt for him.

He reached up for his friend, kissing him clumsily on the mouth, falling as Jack's urgent weight pressed him back into the pillow.  Jack stroked deeply into his mouth to rub and rasp compulsively over his tongue.  Jack asked, he coaxed, a shudder running through his powerful frame when Daniel shyly responded, his tentativeness accepted, understood, met with so much gentleness and passion it shook him to the core.

"I'm sorry," Jack whispered when they broke apart to snatch a breath, resting his forehead against Daniel's.

Daniel shook his head mutely, again opening generously to Jack as he plunged home, trying to be careful of the tremors running through the strong, generous body beneath this own.   Even if he wasn't deeply in love with Daniel, Jack would have been respectful of his inexperience with men.  Daniel was not going to die regretting making love with Jack, only, maybe, that Jack hadn't had the courage to come to him sooner, that they didn't have more time.

There was so much he needed for Daniel to know and no words to fit what he felt for him.  There were no more fear or consequences, no boundaries.  They'd been close for years but had never found one another, never truly expressed the connection between them.  More than friends, more than brothers.   More even than lovers.  The two of them together were whole, and difficult and challenging as they each could be, they fit and flowed and filled all the empty spaces inside.

Sex was the deepest connection Jack knew, the only way he knew they could express the depth of their bond.  This was their time, the only time they would ever have, too short and too precious to waste a moment of it.

Jack kissed Daniel with all the passion he felt, all the love he'd fought so hard against and finally given in to.  He stroked deeply into the silken mouth, touching and tasting every part of Daniel open to him.  He shook all over when a quietly questioning tongue began to push against his, then Daniel's hands came up to hook tightly around his shoulders and pull him closer.

"Is this good?" Jack asked, feathering kisses over Daniel's cheek and jaw.

"Yes, Jack," Daniel whispered.  "Yes."  He reached for Jack and drew him down into another kiss, deeper and more passionate than before, moaning softly as Jack suckled gently on his tongue, unconsciously rocking their bodies together in the familiar rhythm of sex.

The demanding bulge at Jack's crotch was enough to tell Daniel where this was going but when Jack asked if he could touch him, he agreed.  Straddling Daniel's hips, Jack sat back to strip off his T-shirt, watching intently as Daniel emerged from his own.  Broad, callused fingers, always used with such purpose and capability, splayed over Daniel's skin, tracing the outlines of his collar bone as Jack leaned in to kiss his shoulder and push him back down to the mattress.

The teasing nips and licks at Daniel's throat and shoulders began to warm him and he found himself relaxing into Jack's nuzzling, running curious hands over his broad shoulders.   Jack's skin was smooth but the muscle beneath, the shear breadth of bone, was fascinating.  Daniel was surprised to find himself a little breathless at the thought of Jack's strength and power, that explosive temper, not tamed, but gentled.

"Jack?" he said impulsively.

Jack surged up to kiss him, biting distractingly at his lips.  "Hmm?"

"You're attractive," Daniel frowned over this unexpected if not unwelcome realisation.  "I never knew," he added naïvely.   "I never thought."

Jack hushed him with a kiss, a smile Daniel could feel against his lips, and then he skimmed down Daniel's body taking warm swipes at chilled skin until his mouth closed over a nipple and a swift hand stifled Daniel's shout of astonished pleasure.  Jack tortured him then, suckling and stroking each nub to aching hardness as Daniel panted through each stab of dazed desire.

Smiling, Jack slid lower, confidently unbuttoning Daniel's fatigues, wily tongue flickering into his sensitive navel, then lower still, to bury his face in Daniel's pubic hair, breathing in the rich, earthy, masculine scent of him.  Jack lay that way for long minutes, Daniel's fingers first hesitant then gentle in his hair, his breath snuffing warm at Daniel's groin, simply experiencing each pulse and throb of the slow swelling cock, each restless shift of Daniel's achingly aroused body.

He moved then, rolling away to strip first Daniel naked and then himself, moving quickly to keep the mood.  The oily disinfectant the Mirin favoured was all he had to offer as a lubricant.  Their two-pallet Hilton didn't rate fruit baskets, monogrammed robes or fluffy towels, hell, it even came up short on running water, but the Mirin reacted badly to shit on their floors.  A whole race of anal-retentive obsessive-compulsive dust-busters if ever Jack met one.  The disinfectant was absorbed right into the skin so there weren't any scummy rings to scrub out of the cells after they humanely disposed of the occupants.

A glob of the thick jelly was folded into Daniel's handkerchief, tucked on the floor under the pallet before Daniel had realised Jack was close by.  As soon as Daniel saw him with this, Jack hoped he would understand what he wanted to share with him.  They couldn't be closer than this.

Daniel was watching him with a slight frown as he unfolded the handkerchief.  Jack scooped a little of the disinfectant onto his palm, rubbed it between his hands to soften it, releasing the bitter herbal scent, then he began to massage it into Daniel's groin, his hands deft and firm.  Daniel's frown melted into a shy smile, hips arching to deepen the contact, his hands settling over Jack's as he was touched.

Encouraged, Jack took another scoop, warmed it, and reached for Daniel's enticing cock.  He chuckled as Daniel quivered from head to foot at the first touch, leaning down to share a kiss as he rubbed and stroked the proud cock, swelling just a little more against his fingers.   Gabbling incoherently, Daniel clutched at Jack's shoulders as he pleasured him.

"Oh, that's good, Jack," Daniel groaned.  "So good."

"It can be better," Jack promised.  Daniel grabbed him and hauled him into an ecstatic kiss as he fucked Jack's obligingly gripping, gliding hands.  It was such a turn-on to see Daniel losing himself in sex, so accepting of his arousal and his body's responses to Jack when he'd been so totally unprepared for all of this.  "Anything, Daniel.  Anything for you."

He slid an oiled finger deeper between Daniel's sprawled legs, sliding over the sensitive skin behind his balls.  With no sign of refusal, Jack explored further, stroking between Daniel's buttocks.

The clear eyes fixed on him for the longest time, then Daniel nodded jerkily.  Jack rubbed delicate circles over the puckered skin of Daniel's anus, not missing the way his body stilled.  He lay unresisting, waiting, not quite prepared to reject what he didn't know but not truly accepting either.  Jack felt he almost knew Daniel too well.  He deepened the pressure on those circles he was rubbing, pushing into Daniel gradually, taking such care, and still he jerked hard when Jack's finger breached him.

"I'm okay!" Daniel gasped as Jack's finger eased inside him, resting there while Jack kissed Daniel's abdomen and hip.

Jack moved fully between his legs, burying his face again in Daniel's groin as he began to rock his finger against flesh which seemed impossibly tight and tender around him.  Sweat was beading Daniel's brow as he bit at his lip, Jack reaching inside him, reaching.

Daniel's body spasmed with pleasure, sparking behind his eyes and he collapsed, panting harshly, incapable of speech, of granting or denying permission when Jack asked a question he barely heard and pushed into him again, a broader pressure this time.  Daniel lay dazed and sweating, trembling violently, his penis throbbing painfully as Jack reached again and again for the same spot inside him, convulsing him each time.

Daniel could only cling when Jack stretched out over him, kissing him frantically.

"Let me make love, Daniel.  Please.  Let me," Jack pleaded.

He sounded so lost.  Daniel reached for him, cradling Jack close to kiss him, stroking deep into his mouth as his legs were lifted to hook around Jack's waist.  Jack was going to fuck him, Daniel understood that.  He was a little afraid of what it would do to him, to them both, but he loved Jack and he needed him and he didn't want to say no.  His body sang with the pleasure of all Jack was doing for him and all he wanted was to have Jack closer, to have no walls, no distance between them.

Jack braced himself on balled fists planted hard in the thin mattress either side of Daniel.  He felt as if his head were exploding, he wanted this so much.  It took all his discipline to push with such relentless gentleness into Daniel's body, opening so slowly and grudgingly to him, then Daniel groaned wrenchingly and Jack was sliding stunningly deep into silken, gripping heat.  Instinct drove him forward, powering up from his knees to thrust home, satin skin warm against his balls.

Daniel's hand was clamped over his mouth, a few scalding, pained tears drying on his lashes.  He shook and shook and Jack was still, lowering himself to rest on his elbows and kiss Daniel's face.

"You mean the world to me," Jack promised quietly.

Daniel gulped and nodded, opening drenched eyes.  His mouth was clumsy and shaking when Jack kissed him but he hurt, he hadn't known it would hurt this much.  Jack kissed him again with all the tenderness he could no longer hide, a sweet, endless kiss, tongues touching, stroking sensuously.  The burn eased to an ache.  It seemed to him they lay still and close for a long time and then Jack began to rock their bodies together and the time was little enough.  Pain flared and slowly, slowly dulled again, though Daniel was aware of little else.

He expected it to be quick; Jack filled him to bursting, every throb of blood in his steely penis spiking sensation inside Daniel, tingling throughout his body.  It couldn't last, not this intensity.

Moving softly inside Daniel, Jack was giving everything of himself.  If there was a surrender here, it wasn't simple.  It wasn't physical.  Daniel's body was open to him, but Daniel had all of Jack.  He hoped Daniel knew he was holding nothing back from him.

There were times Jack's eyes would meet Daniel's and the world went away.  He thought it happened for them both.  He was sure it did.  It was easy to lose control around Daniel but painful for Jack to give it up.  A clean pain, though, one which brought him a kind of peace, an ease in himself he hadn't known for a long time.

He couldn't point out a specific time when this began, when he'd first begun to look through other people, seeing only Daniel.  There was no obvious or deliberate way Daniel had breached every defence he had, it hadn't happened quickly or consciously or with his co-operation.  He didn't know when it became as important to him for Daniel to know him as it was to him to know himself, only that it was.  
Daniel's hold on him was different than he'd ever known, more complete than he'd thought was possible.

Wasn't this his problem?  Always?  That he kept his distance?  Easy to hug and be the big man, but hard to make himself vulnerable, hard to talk.  His instinct was to withdraw.  To run.  Only Daniel seemed able to make himself heard, to reach Jack when he didn't want to be reached.

Maybe this was all the time they were allowed, but to Jack it still felt like the right time.  Daniel was so gentle, so trusting, his acceptance and shy responses were magical.  Jack felt as if together they could do anything.

Daniel was beginning to wonder what was keeping Jack so quiet when he suddenly smiled down at him, smoothing damp hair from his brow, his fingers moving constantly over Daniel's face, touching him wonderingly, as if he couldn't get enough of him.  All the time Jack was moving, rocking into him so tenderly, so compulsively, Daniel began to warm again, began to want to feel and share.

"Can I?" he asked uncertainly.

"Anything," Jack promised.

Daniel wrapped his arms around Jack's shoulders, curious to feel him move.  Jack's skin was slick with sweat but his iron discipline never wavered.  Daniel moved his legs cautiously, braced for a stab of pain which never came, just more of this rippling warmth.  His thighs ached with the effort of holding himself this way.  He slowly wrapped his legs tight around Jack's back, hooking his ankles, the sudden blaze of pleasure in Jack's dark eyes making him blush.

He wondered how he felt to Jack in all his heat and tightness, then lost himself in how Jack felt to him.  He'd never known anything could go so deep, his body giving easily to each thrust, moving now with Jack's flesh instead of resisting.  The fullness was unlike anything he'd ever felt before and he found he liked it.  The slow slide of sleek, oiled skin inside him was incredible though it made him throb and ache all over.  He and Jack fit so exactly, he felt everything of Jack's rhythmic heat and hardness stroking strongly into him.

There was beginning to be more than warmth now.  His flaccid penis had been trapped between his abdomen and Jack's, but he was rubbed inside and out, skin moving over him, pounding into him with such grace and power, the gradually intensifying sensations sparking throughout his body growing more and more exciting as Jack fucked him perfectly slowly, the steady drive of his hips never faltering.  Daniel began to be aroused again and was touched by Jack's poorly concealed relief that he was giving pleasure.

Jack buried his face in the hollow of Daniel's shoulder, rubbing his brow into the pillow to wipe stinging sweat from his eyes.  At last Daniel was melting into the sex, cradling Jack to him, generous, still trusting and beginning to be pleasured.  Jack dug his knees into the mattress, lifting Daniel a little as he thrust, powering hips rolling him forward.   Daniel gasped and shuddered as Jack's cock stroked over the hard nub of flesh deep inside.

Gloating, Jack thrust again into the same spot, Daniel's thighs clenching urgently around his back, nails digging into his shoulders.  He drove again for that spot, and again, feeling as if his heart might burst.  Discipline and stamina had brought them this far but Jack could do no more, he was hurting.  He drove deep, exulting over the helplessly arching back and moist, greedy noises Daniel was making as Jack fucked him hard.

"Slower, Jack, slower!" Daniel gasped.  "Please!"

Jack loved him and he'd promised Daniel anything, so he fought himself to a stop, trembling violently.  His body pounding, he buried his face in Daniel's throat, labouring for breath as the tension was slowly massaged from his shoulders.   When he felt he could hold himself, he lifted his head and kissed Daniel as long as he could, then began to thrust again, Daniel sliding like silk over his bursting cock.

It was so satisfying that Jack stroked this way again, long and deep, trusting Daniel not to allow himself to be hurt by it, trusting in the incredulous pleasure on Daniel's perfect face as Jack fucked him hard and slow and deep, each time with the exhausting roll of his hips which left Daniel clawing at his shoulders, arching beneath him, the breath sobbing in his throat.

It was the unguarded look in Daniel's eyes which had Jack killing himself to make it last, to make it everything.  Daniel felt the rightness of this too.

Heart bursting, beyond his endurance, Jack drove a final time into that sweet spot inside with everything he had, Daniel's shoulders arched from the bed as he convulsed, crying out as he came in ribbons, slick heat shooting over Jack's belly, his beautiful body electric, and shaken by spasms which rippled and squeezed around Jack's cock.  Ecstatic, buried to extremity inside Daniel, Jack came so hard it hurt, his neck and back clenching as he exploded, pinwheels behind his eyes as he fell heavily forward, the room spinning.  He rocked blindly, unbearably sensitised, his pumping cock milked by Daniel's orgasmic tremors.

They lay that way a long time, holding one another, Jack's heart thumping so hard he felt sick, too drained and sated to even lift his head until the soft, uncertain call of his name had to be answered.  Arms trembling, he withdrew from Daniel with the same care he'd entered him, reaching for the disinfectant to rub over his quaking belly and thighs, working it carefully until quivering muscles at last relaxed beneath his hands.

He pulled the blankets up around them and gathered Daniel to him.

"I'm okay," Daniel whispered.

Jack wished he knew how much time they had. 

 

* * *

<>Daniel could do anything with Jack.  Anything.  Jack had made more than a casual offer; he'd made a promise.

This was - Jack was amazing.

"This feels so good," Daniel confessed shyly, his fingers returning once again to Jack's face.  The freedom to touch as he pleased was wholly intoxicating.  He didn't seem able to stop and Jack didn't want him to.  Daniel was fascinated.  And grateful.  Very, very grateful.  Every part of him was warm for the first time in too long, warm against every accessible part of Jack.  "I can't stop touching," Daniel smiled.  "I don't want to stop."  He couldn't be anything but honest either.

"Then we both want the same thing," Jack said lazily, stretching pleasurably, Daniel going with the flow of his arching back and flexing limbs.

It drew him to the breadth of Jack's shoulders, the depth of muscle firm beneath his exploring fingers.

"You good?" Jack asked, smiling as Daniel tilted up his face and kissed him.  "Mmm," Jack sighed, a long leg hooking possessively over Daniel's butt.  "You're damn good.  Great, in fact."

Taking the hint, Daniel kissed him again.  He was drunk with sensation, his attention a fleeting thing, drawn first by the feel of Jack's chest against his as they breathed, the chafe of hair and the granite feel of Jack's abdomen, the ridges of muscle rolling sleekly as the kiss got serious.  They'd never been closer, never been more alive.

He had all of Jack, he knew it.

Electric with all this feeling, Daniel took Jack's face between his hands, nuzzling kisses over Jack's cheeks and chin, stubble prickling over his lips, rubbing his face against Jack's with all the affection he was wary of expressing.

"Spend the rest of your life with me."

"All five minutes?" Daniel murmured distractedly, kissing his way along Jack's jawline.

"I'm serious."

"Ten minutes, then," Daniel amended generously.

"Don't make me get down on one knee," Jack threatened darkly.

Daniel blinked at this pronouncement, which should have been extravagant, but wasn't, Jack was too serious for that, lifting his head a little to look down into dark eyes melting with tenderness.  "Are you?" he asked, incredulous.  It was so wild, Jack couldn't be-

"Proposing?  Yes."

Oh.  He was.  Oh my god!  He was!

"Yes."

"Daniel?"

"Please."  Dying with no walls between them, together in trust and perfect empathy, his senses filled with Jack, nothing could hurt him.  He could keep Jack safe, keep Jack with him.  The Mirin would have nothing, couldn't touch them.  "Please, Jack."  Together at the end, closer than they'd ever been and sure of each other.

"You've made me the happiest man alive for not much longer," Jack promised solemnly, rolling them onto their sides, smiling contentedly as Daniel drew him in to rest brow to brow.

Arms tight around each other, they lay together, finding their private peace staring into one another's eyes.

The prison began to stir around them, the cheerful voices of the guards obscenely invasive.  Meals were being delivered, cells and prisoners carefully inspected.  Nothing was left to chance by the careful Mirin.  No risks were taken.  Every one of the hostages were valuable until their deadline.  The value the Mirin placed on life was strangely absolute, not a gift of chance and opportunity, not a right, but a burden of privilege and responsibility.  The individual held no intrinsic value, their worth was nothing balanced against the needs of the many.

A price had been set for Jack and Daniel, a price their President couldn't afford to meet.  Daniel wasn't afraid to die if his death was a repudiation of the Mirin.  He wasn't afraid, not now.  He had Jack.

"We're out of time," Jack whispered as the sounds grew closer.

Dressing was a sober affair, completed quickly and in silence.  After, they sat together on Daniel's pallet, facing the door, as ready as they could be.  Daniel's bare hands and feet were numb, not that he wasn't used to this now, the only warmth where Jack's shoulder touched his and he couldn't help but remember the first shock of heat from Jack's mouth on his.

"I meant," Jack said suddenly, fiercely, "everything."

Daniel took Jack's hand in both of his and held on tightly.  Jack smoothed Daniel's hair from his brow and they kissed urgently, losing themselves, letting go, falling into heat.

Then they really were out of time, guards crowding into the cell, too many to resist even if there was any point to it now.  They'd been shackled at the wrist and ankle each time they were taken from the cell to face more questions from the Conclave.  There was a refinement this time, a thin chain which bound Daniel's right wrist and ankle to Jack's left.  Presumably a response to the last escape attempt.  Distant and a little numb, Daniel cared only that he and Jack wouldn't be parted.

The blindfolds were bad, they had been each time, deliberately inflicted disorientation of course, distorting distance and direction, enforcing dependence on the guards.  It was bad, Daniel shying for the first time.  It wasn't the straight-forward threats of the guard which silenced him but Jack's little finger curling around his.

They'd kept perfect time for years and kept it now, moving as one, Jack shortening and slowing his pace a little, just as Daniel lengthened and speeded his.  They matched, always did, each able to give just enough for them to meet.

The cold, pitted metal of the floor marked the boundary of their prison, ending in noise and confusion and the opening of a huge, heavy door or gate they'd never seen as they were marched out into the bite of fresh, cold air, pallid heat in the watery sun on Daniel's face and frost burning his bare feet.

Jack was at his shoulder, the hooking of their fingers masked by their bodies, unseen by the guards, a private thing.  They marched boldly, counting their steps as they had each time they'd been taken to face the Conclave, forcing the pace, refusing to be led.

Daniel was intensely proud of Jack's defiant bravery, as warming to him as the touch of his hand.  He was glad Teal'c and Sam were safe but the knowledge didn't help him.  He didn't want to die.  His life was little enough, paling to insignificance in the great span of histories and cultures which enraptured him.  The truths his studies had revealed would endure, the only legacy he would leave.

Death would mean an end to grief and failure, a resolution of his loss, but still, Daniel didn't want to die.  He lived in hope and expectation, curiosity and wonder at all things greater than himself.  He was passionate, he knew it, a fault in him as much as it was a strength.

He'd found Jack, found greater clarity and oneness than he'd ever experienced in his life and he wasn't ready to let go.  He wouldn't ever be.

Jack hated his helplessness, hated having no choices.  Dying or living and seeing Daniel's heart broken because of it, and maybe his own, was no choice at all.    He'd faced death before and managed to be glib about it, managed, when he had to, to look as if he didn't care in a loud, snide 'fuck you' to whoever or whatever was looking to gloat over his messy demise.  He was not glib now.

They had to move slowly if they were to avoid falling.  They'd walked this unvarying route over and over in the past three weeks but they'd never seen it.  Hearing could only do so much, the measured march of the guards helped.  Daniel's pace was easy, matching his own, never faltering.  There was nothing they could say to one another, not without losing what little privacy and dignity this mundane execution was leaving them, but Daniel was talking just the same, talking loud and clear, his sensitive fingers rubbing and twining sinuously, sensuously with Jack's.

He was smart enough to know Daniel didn't mean his gentle touches to be sexy, any more than he intended his soft, musical voice to be sexy.  Like the big, beautiful baby blues and the soft tendrils of hair whispering over his brow, they just were.  They were Daniel and they evoked a specific response in Jack.

Marching to his death with a big honkin' boner seemed to Jack as good a 'fuck you' as any to the prissy, prudish Mirin and their solemn ceremoniousness if he absolutely had to go, and it seemed this time he did.  Not even Maybourne could sell euthanasia to the good ole' US of A.

It hurt him, he wanted so much for Daniel to be safe and away from him.  A soldier who stopped being afraid was a dead soldier, but this feeling clawing at his insides wasn't the fear he knew.  There was nothing left for him to fight, he couldn't surrender and he wanted Daniel gone and wanted him here and while Daniel was holding onto him, Jack wouldn't ever let go.

They stumbled for the first time as they reached the steps which led up to the Hall of Voices where the Mirin bureaucrats gathered to see the Conclave dispense its arbitrary version of justice, where right or wrong seemed less important than 'how much?'

Jack picked up the pace again, confident Daniel would keep up with him.  They might not have any choices here, but they didn't have to act like it.  He strode out, aware first of smooth boards beneath his feet, the heavy, woodsy scent of incense and then the buzz of hushed, expectant voices.

"Good morning, campers!" Jack roared out in response to the snatches of avid conversation he could hear.  "Looks like we drew a crowd."  The central avenue, the one which led to the Conclave on its dais, would be clear.  The people would be gathered along the secondary walkways winding between the many fire pits.  Jack marched just a little faster, he and Daniel moving like a well-oiled machine, forcing the startled guards to jog to keep up.

So it was small and petty.  So what!  Fuck 'em if they couldn't take a joke.

Two heavily carved stairways led up to the big round table where the thirteen Mirin lawmakers of the Conclave sat.  Jack was counting his steps, he'd been marched this route enough to have his timing down perfectly.  His foot found the first step and they were climbing.

"We have a right to be heard," Daniel demanded the instant Jack brought them to a measured, confident halt.

"That you do," the now familiar voice of the once urbane Speaker responded reluctantly.

"I didn't think this was possible, but the Mirin disgust me," Daniel said steadily, his voice carrying effortlessly with the perfect acoustics.

Jack noted that the pompous bureaucratic buzz began to quieten at once.

"I feel for you nothing but abhorrence and the deepest contempt.  You exercise a societal control so complete it would be impossible to impose," Daniel went on, passionate but controlled.  "Family, education, religion and law are all perverted to one end: forcing yourselves to accept that the state sanctioned mass murder of your elderly and infirm is not only necessary but wise."

"The family that slays together, stays together," Jack chimed in on cue, enjoying a shocked gasp from behind him here and there in the listening crowd.

"You're killing healthy people systematically," Daniel calmly picked up his thread again.  "Because of an arbitrary judgement on age relative to productivity.  The worth of a life and an individual is not to be judged materially!  All people are created equal, all have an equal right to live."

"By your light, they do," the Speaker snapped.  "It is the way of the Mirin to ease the passing of our elders in honour so those who remain are stronger and draw all the closer."

"This concern of yours to kill humanely is simply one more Mirin lie," Daniel interjected, his musical voice rising to drown out the Speaker's nasal, squealing tones.  "You want the elders to go quietly and without fuss so you can go on lying to yourselves and to them that it's for good rather than a calculated murder."

A shocked, angry mutter ran through the crowd.  Jack was proud of Daniel.  He had this way of cutting through the bull-shit with laser-like precision.

"If you want a painless end, why bother with lethal injection?  Toss 'em in the wormhole!" Jack advised heartily, feeling obliged to do the Tammy Wynette thing and stand by his man, who wasn't allowing being chained, surrounded and blindfolded to slow him down at all.  "It makes it harder to lie to yourself you did the right thing," Jack admitted fair-mindedly, "but it achieves the same result and there are no funeral costs at the end of it."  Always look for that silver lining!

Outraged shouts began to erupt from the unseen crowd, an ugly edge simmering now in the buzz behind them.

"We've never discussed what you do with those elders who refuse Quietus," Daniel suggested sleekly, everyone around them aware that he and the Conclave had pretty exhaustively discussed everything else.

"Impossible!" someone gasped, not the Speaker.  Jack didn't know this voice.  "To do so would dishonour their family!"

"What penalty would you impose on the dishonoured family?" Daniel pounced.

"Aw, come on!" Jack urged when they stayed sullenly silent.  "We know they wouldn't get away scot-free.  Nothing is free on Mirin."

"Especially not life," Daniel agreed.

"Such a thing could not happen," the Speaker pronounced with flat, uncomfortable finality.

Jack didn't miss that the murdering bastard hadn't answered the question.

"Because you made it impossible," Daniel retorted.  "Do you sanction Quietus for all the dishonoured family?"

"It does not matter, because-"

"Because you made it impossible!" Daniel interrupted with quiet, controlled anger.  "One dies or the whole family dies, right?  Circular logic won't help you here, Speaker. You hold the lives of these people in your hands.  The low crime rates you boasted of when we first arrived?  Because you kill all the dishonoured family.  The high survival rate and low death rate?  Because any infant born with disabilities or medical conditions deemed untreatable is terminated."

"Because everyone who lives to the age of fifty years is terminated," Jack added.

"There is no need and no want in Mirin society because you terminate all those who are in need," Daniel said scathingly.  "You've abrogated your responsibility in government for the welfare of your people - all your people - and are merely the latest in a long line of Conclaves to abuse the power you've been granted.  My government won't help you. They won't give you the penicillin to help you develop the new toxin you're looking for.  We're neither so cynical nor so desperate."

"Looks like you'll have to fall back on alternative methods of terminating your nearest and dearest," Jack added, smiling unpleasantly.  "Nothing so pretty or so pacifying as the soft-focus Forest Lawns infomercial stuff you have now, nothing so easy to fool all of the people apparently all of the time."

"There can't be a person here who doesn't live in fear for a parent, for a child, a sibling or friend, and ultimately for themselves, whether they can admit or not," Daniel insisted with quiet intensity.  "Everyone is driven by that fear, the advancement of your people is fuelled by that fear, not by pride or honour or ethics, because you have none.  All you have are lies and compromises."

"You have had your say, Tau'ri!" the Speaker snarled.  "Guards!"

"You're worse than the Goa'uld," Jack informed them contemptuously as his shoulders were taken and he was forced along, digging his bare heels into the smooth, scented boards, hanging heavy from the guards' hands.

"I understand why you do this," Daniel went on inexorably, his soft voice whispering around the room, stronger than the deathly hush in the Hall of the Voices.  "I'm not insensate, Speaker of the Conclave."

"Guards!" the Speaker squealed, his voice rising half an octave.

Jack was very proud of the effect Daniel had on some people, like fingernails screeched down a blackboard.

"You have to maintain this lie, all of you, because you've killed your own loved ones," Daniel icily accused the assembled Mirin.  "All of you.  You have to believe Quietus is right and just, because you all have blood on your hands.  Every last one of you.  You can't even allow yourself to mourn the parents you murdered, the husbands, wives and children.  You have to celebrate it.  You can't allow yourself to see a choice and so your slavery endures, a slavery more profound than any I thought was possible, because you did this to yourselves."

"It is you who lies!" some unknown called out from the crowd.

"I can see why you desperately need to believe that," Daniel riposted.  "But while you do, more Mirin will be murdered.  It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.  You won't break the cycle until one generation stands up to take responsibility and accepts its guilt instead of institutionalising denial of it.  But I guess that won't be you."

"Enough!" the Speaker roared.  "Silence them!"

Pinned by violent hands and a mass of bodies pressing in, too many for him now, and too angry, Jack was lifted off his feet and viciously slammed down, the guards piling in on top of him, looking for some payback for their dead good buddies.

"Jack!" Daniel's voice rose in a pained gasp as his fingers found Jack's.

Pressure spiked sharp and then dull in Jack's chest, spreading far and fast as Daniel's fingers stilled in his.  Panic clawed as his body numbed, his vision greying out as he choked, raging beneath the deadening weight.  Too soon!  It wasn't enough, he couldn't let go, not of Daniel, never.

He fought to speak, suffocating as Daniel was taken from him.


	2. Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slash: Jack and Daniel involved in a loving and committed relationship, which usually involves sex.  
> Rating: NC-17  
> Category: Angst. Drama. First Time. Friendship. Hurt/Comfort.  
> Season/Spoilers: Season 5. Spoilers for Seasons 1-5. Politics. Need. Legacy. Shades of Grey. Divide & Conquer. Failsafe. Menace. The Sentinel.  
> Synopsis: When Daniel's belief in himself and his place in the team are shaken to the core, can Jack help him find his true voice again?  
> Warnings: Angst and ambiguity make this quite dark in tone.

"Are you going to leave or do I have to pee right in front of you?"

Jack?

Fighting the muffled, leaden feeling weighting his head, Daniel tried to open his eyes.  Grey concrete blurred then fell away from him, his eyelids fluttering as he struggled against the sickening disorientation.

Jack?

"Dr. Jackson?"

Hands not known to him were reaching, touching.  Daniel pushed them away and then his own were taken and held.

"I'm here, I've got you."

"Jack," Daniel whispered gratefully.

"You look like I feel," Jack said softly, the teasing note quite gone from his voice.

Daniel tried again to open his eyes, his throat flooding with the bitter bite of salt as his head swam.  "This is wrong!" he exclaimed fretfully.  "I don't understand.  Why?" he gulped in an agitated breath, "Why are we still alive?  We shouldn't be here.  We can't be!"

"We weren't rescued," Jack told him even more quietly, his weight shifting as he sat on the bed, his thigh warm against Daniel's side.

"We couldn't - they didn't make a deal!" Daniel pleaded agitatedly, wishing he could see Jack, centre himself.  "They didn't.  We're not - nothing is worth that.  Nothing!"

"I don't know anything," Jack soothed, gentle fingers smoothing over Daniel's face.  "I've only been awake a few minutes, long enough to check you were okay and try to take a leak without an audience."

"The nausea will pass quicker if you just lie still, Dr. Jackson," the other voice warned, nasal, female and pushy.

"I think he got that on his own, thanks," Jack retorted sarcastically.

"Hammond?" Daniel demanded.  He almost brushed away the straw pressed against his lips but he was parched and dizzy.  Dehydrated.  It was smarter to drink as Jack wanted and then talk.  He gulped greedily at the chilled water, then lay quietly with Jack's hands on him, the room spinning as he tried again and again to open his eyes.  Tried to think.

Ignoring the growing babble of faint, tinny voices beginning to surround them, Jack held onto him, encouraging him to drink again, to swallow down meds, to impatiently accept the various intrusions of the medical staff.

Harsh light streaked red behind his eyelids for a long time before Daniel was able to keep his eyes open for more than a second or two, squinting as he tried to bring Jack's wavering face into focus.

"O'Neill!"

Jack looked around as Teal'c strode into the small room, scattering the nurses with their precious charts and clipboards from his path.

"What the hell is going on?" Jack hissed, his face as ugly as his voice.

Folding his hands deliberately behind his back, Teal'c scowled darkly, taking his time in framing a reply.  "The Mirin broke their word to return you unharmed to the neutral world agreed upon for the exchange.  They injected each of you with a substance which has kept you unconscious for a full day."

"You gave the Mirin the penicillin?"  Daniel was unable to take in what he was hearing.  He simply couldn't comprehend - it was senseless, impossible!  He knew these people.  They were his friends.

It was stupid to cling to this belief when he and Jack were alive and were here, he knew that, but he didn't seem able to get himself free of it.

"We did," Teal'c confirmed, frowning at Daniel.  "It was not easy for General Hammond to make this possible.  Though the President was most reluctant to deal with terrorists, the lure of weapons-grade naquadah was too great.  General Hammond did all he could to expedite your release but the Mirin Conclave remained obdurate.  They would not grant your release before the deadline they had determined."

"Hammond did this?" Jack snarled in furious incredulity.  "I don't believe it!"

"I understand your concern, O'Neill," Teal'c began.

"I don't think you do!" Daniel contradicted stormily.

"To negotiate with those your laws deem terrorists is-" Teal'c patiently tried again.

"Irrelevant!"  Daniel sat up shakily, angered and confused by Teal'c's incomprehension.  "I'm talking about you!"  Distressed, he caught himself up on this thought, realising he was drawing a line here, distancing himself from his friends.   "I don't care what Hammond thought he was doing or who he thought he was doing it for, he was wrong!  This was wrong.  We should be dead.   I'd rather be dead!"

"Daniel!"

The shocked gasp wrenched Daniel's head around to meet Sam's wide, hurt  eyes.  Fraiser was with her, the general behind them.

"How could you do this!" Daniel raged.  "How could you!  You - you knew!  You had to!"

"Those murdering bastards," Jack snarled, storming to his feet and staggering as he was struck by a wave of dizziness.  Deciding they could all kiss his raggedy bare ass, he shied away from the help Teal'c offered, turning to plant his back against the wall, one hand clenched heavily on Daniel's shoulder.  "They were laughing at us.  The whole time -  laughing!"  It filled him with killing rage.

Daniel shuddered at the memory of his fine defiance, understanding at last why the Speaker had let him ramble on to the bitter end.  The Conclave, probably every Mirin official standing there had known the deal had been struck.  The Speaker disliked Daniel too intensely to give him anything.  He'd wanted them to suffer, thinking they were dying and then, knowing how they felt about it - this.  Exactly this.

"God," Daniel whispered.

"Colonel, Dr. Jackson, calm yourselves."  As he was speaking, General Hammond pushed past Sam and Fraiser, stepping out front and centre, centring them as he always did.

"Explain," Teal'c invited, his concern for them evident.

"You made a deal with mass murderers!" Daniel passionately accused the general.  He was at a loss to understand the lack of reaction from his friends and too angry to be anything other than direct in his questions.

"We did what?" Hammond demanded sharply, taken aback by Daniel's vehemence.

"Daniel, we don't know what you mean," Sam said pacifically, moving over to stand at the foot of Daniel's bed while Fraiser busied herself with Daniel's charts.  "The general - all of us! - had to work hard to convince the President to agree to negotiate, even taking into consideration the humanitarian need of the Mirin."

"Hum-humanitarian?" Daniel stammered in stunned dismay.  "Euthanasia?"

Everyone was shocked instantly into silence, gaping at Daniel in incredulous horror.

"That's the deal you made," Jack enunciated contemptuously as they looked at each other in confusion.  "Don't pretend it's anything else."

"Colonel, I don't care for your tone or your meaning," Hammond retorted, frowning heavily.  "Loathe though I am to negotiate with terrorists, Major Carter and Teal'c's investigations eventually convinced me the Mirin would keep their word to release you and as all contact with their world was to be severed after the delivery of the naquadah and the two of you, I decided the risk was acceptable."

"It was not acceptable!" Daniel argued fierily.  "You're not hearing me.  The penicillin you supplied to the Mirin will be used to develop a drug for state-sanctioned, systematic euthanasia.  They were only interested in the toxicity of the penicillin, in killing, not healing."

"Doctor?" Hammond turned to Fraiser.

"Every adult over the age of fifty years, every defective child - everyone who can't or won't pull their weight as the Conclave demands," Jack fired at the general before Fraiser could speak, "is terminated.  You get that?  Ter-min-at-ed," he enunciated offensively, miming his throat being cut.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Sam said slowly.

"Which means it can't be true?" Daniel demanded dangerously, not missing her swift exchange of knowing glances with the general.  "It doesn't matter how sanctimonious you act, Sam," he hissed in frustration at her infuriating closed-mindedness.  "Or how arrogant you are."  Daniel ignored Sam's suddenly narrowed eyes and pinched lips, Fraiser's angry double-take.  "You should know.  You saw what I saw, you heard what I heard.  We talked!  You know we did, right before you gated through.  I told you I was worried, that something felt very wrong to me.  It should have been enough!"  He glared up at her, angry beyond reason.  How could she have ignored him?  How could she?  "I t-told you!" he stuttered furiously.  "I asked questions.  Why didn't you?"

"Easy, son," Hammond soothed.

"No, I don't think so.  Not this time.  I want answers!"  Daniel glared at Sam, their gazes clashing.

"As do I," Teal'c said slowly, looking deeply troubled.  "I do not doubt your word, DanielJackson, nor do I doubt Major Carter.  Yet you cannot both be right."

"Did you do this, Sam?  Did you?" Daniel challenged.

"Yes, I did this!" Sam snapped.  "I did it to save you.  I didn't want to give the Mirin what they needed, not when they took you, but what choice did we have?  People were dying!  You were dying!"

"People," Jack corrected with cutting precision, "were being killed."  He clapped his hands slowly, insultingly, driving the angry flush clear across Sam's face.  "Way to go, Major.  You not only let the Mirin know there was a whole new way to go on with the slaughter, you actually handed over the means to do it."

Was it fair to feel so betrayed?  Daniel didn't know, only that he was.  He trusted Sam.  It had never occurred to him, not once, that she would just accept what she saw on Mirin.   He had told her and he'd believed she would take him on faith.  Did he and Jack matter to her so much she hadn't questioned, hadn't wanted to know anything that would make her leave them behind?  It was hard for Sam, he knew that.  Her loyalty was an important thing in his life.

He didn't, god, he really didn't want it to be because of him.  He'd let go of himself, of his life, believing it was right.  Could he have let go of Sam if he were the one on Earth and she was held by the Mirin?  Of Jack?  In their prison cell, Daniel had thought he would and could.  Now he didn't have that certainty any longer.  It was naïve to think that only he would die for his principles.  He'd always known that principles killed.  Maybe there was no choice at all.   If he'd been the one to be left behind on Earth, making a choice that determined if his friends lived or died, a big part of him would have died anyway, no matter the outcome.  He didn't think there was a choice he could have lived with.

"Were you so certain you were right?" Daniel whispered, pleading, gazing up at Sam.  She could say nothing, paling and blinking fiercely as her anger evaporated, leaving her shaken and staring as she began at last to question.  Far, far too late.  Unutterably defeated, Daniel slumped exhausted against the hard pillows, roughly rubbing his palms over aching eyes.  He couldn't bear to look at her.   For the first time, he had nothing to give, nothing, and he didn't know what to do with that.

"That is unfair, DanielJackson," Teal'c rebuked him.  "I believe Major Carter thought only of you."

"What does it matter?"  Daniel sighed.  "The Mirin will go on killing and we're responsible."

"Not us," Jack countered flatly, his meaning specific.

"We're a team," Sam said softly, her voice not quite a plea.

"I know why, Carter," Jack answered wearily, unable to look at her.  "I just don't know how."

"Euthanasia?" Fraiser asked haltingly, appalled, perhaps more than any of them, at the very notion.

"What do you want us to say?" Jack shrugged.  "Carter spilled her guts without realising the consequences.  Daniel started asking questions soon after we got there, when he saw how travellers were kept isolated from the population and he kept right on asking 'em after Carter gated back, the wrong questions or maybe the right questions.  I don't know.  Either way, I got us captured because I split my team," Jack confessed roughly, daring anyone to contradict him.

"Daniel told me what he'd already told Carter on the way back from the Stargate," he went on, staring her down, watching as her head dropped.  "I was there, I finally opened my eyes, took a look around and saw what was wrong with the picture.  There weren't any old people.  None.  Not a single person past my age.  It was like one of those freakin' optical illusions, now you see it, now you don't.  Carter could've seen it too, she had the goddamned video, but apparently she didn’t, so you didn't figure out what the Mirin would do with the antibiotic.  You wanted to save us.  Do we really need to do this?  Do we need to blame someone?"

"People will still die and we'll still be responsible," General Hammond replied, his eyes shadowed and old.  "Isn't that what you're saying?"

"We didn't mean," Sam tried to explain, her strain very evident.

"I don't care what you meant!" Jack flared at her, ugly again.  "I care what you did."

"We did," the general amended heavily, refusing to abrogate his responsibility.

"It appears that false assumptions were made by all," Teal'c observed evenly.  "We share this burden."

"Killing people we were trying to help?" Struggling with all of it, perhaps the part she had played most of all, Sam turned instinctively to Fraiser for support only to find Fraiser as much in need of it as herself, as lost in her part as Sam was.

"It isn't the first time," Jack reminded them all.

"I don't know that there's anything to be gained by recrimination, Colonel," Hammond remarked.  "We'll need to debrief fully, as soon as you gentlemen are feeling up to it."

Fraiser jumped at this, abruptly recalled to duty.

"There will be consequences?" Teal'c asked the general, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

"There will," Hammond acknowledged straight-forwardly.  "We pushed this to the limit  in negotiating the exchange of the antibiotic for the naquadah and for Colonel O'Neill and Dr. Jackson."

"Will we be court-martialled?"

"I expect so, Major," Hammond answered Sam's quiet question.  "We appear to have collaborated, however unwittingly, in mass murder.  I believe that makes us accessories after the fact."

She dropped her head then, folding in on herself in her guilt and confusion.

"Ignorance is not a defence accepted by your laws," Teal'c commented.

"No," Sam agreed, her devastation beginning to show through the cracks in her composure.  "No defence at all."

"Court-martial?" Daniel repeated.

"The three of us," Jack confirmed.  "And you'll be the star witness."

Sam looked up then, her eyes filled with unshed tears.  "For the prosecution."

"There won't be a court-martial," Daniel said stupidly, looking blankly up at Jack.  "Don't you see?  The President authorised the exchange.   If you're court-martialled, you'll not only breach the security of the Stargate programme but you'll implicate the President and you'll bring him down.  They won't allow that to happen.  The Mirin are cut off from us which means it's my word against Sam's."

They were all staring at him now, even Jack, as far from him in understanding as they had ever been.   
Daniel guessed he was going to have to spell it out for them.

"When have any of you ever taken that?  It seems that no matter how often I'm proved right, you don't learn from past experience.  I have to fight, have to prove myself over and over again to earn the kind of respect and credence you grant Sam automatically.  The reaction I get most often is condescension," he glanced up involuntarily at Jack, "and inappropriate sarcasm."   
    
    


 

* * *

  
  


Daniel wasn't prepared for how sore and achy he was, even after his first hot shower in weeks, how much time and care it took him to dress, moving slowly from his locker to the nearest bench then back again for the next item.

"Are you hurting?  I tried to be careful, but I wanted you so much, I got kind of lost there," Jack apologised remorsefully from right behind Daniel, making him jump.

"A little," Daniel admitted uncomfortably, unable to deal with such a direct reminder of what he and Jack had so unexpectedly done together.

"Sorry," Jack whispered, kissing the nape of Daniel's neck.  His arms came around Daniel, pulling him in to rest against him.  "I know we need to talk, Daniel.  Just ride out the debriefing, okay?  We'll have time then."

"It's not important," Daniel said quietly.

"You're important."

Daniel didn't know what to say to this, so he said nothing.  Jack was holding onto him, while he just stood there, his whole body tight and defensive.  He was scared and Jack probably knew this.  There was too much intensity, too many memories crowding thick and vivid, of skin sliding over him and into him, eager mouths, heat and touch.

"What a mess," Jack sighed.

"With an easy solution," Daniel argued sturdily.

"We won't lie!" Jack snapped.

"No, I know that, Jack," Daniel answered pacifically.  Jack and the general, Sam, all of them would tell the truth as they saw it.  It was Daniel who would have to lie.  He didn't say anything because he was too tired to have to fight it out with Jack now and then again in the debriefing.

He wished he'd had even a few minutes alone, to think, to try to sort things through in his mind.  There were too many people wanting a piece of him, too many jarring voices and demands.  There were no reassurances Daniel could offer anyone and he didn't feel able to let his friends rationalise away what had happened.  He couldn't.

Once again he was right, and once again he would have to be wrong.  It always seemed to work this way, always seemed to be him.  He had to work harder for trust, for belief, had to allay the same suspicions and fears every time he needed his friends to take him on faith.  It made him miserably conscious of all the differences between himself and Jack, differences which Jack at least wasn't always able to work past.

Was it the way Daniel did his job?  His role was fundamental, evolving over time until it was understood he would be the one to make the necessary leaps, to intuit and think outside the box.  When this was asked of him, expected and relied upon, why did it open him to thinly concealed doubts and confident negativity again and again?

Or was it simpler?  Was it him?

Jack let go of him and moved around to stand at his side, leaning casually against the shelves which bordered his closet.  Jack seemed unaware of how close he was to Daniel, how far inside his personal space he was, so close Daniel could feel the heat of his body.  It certainly wasn't any easier on Daniel to have Jack watching him and trying to read him than it had been to have Jack behind him.  Holding him.

He glanced up, trying to smile.  "I don't know what to say to you," he admitted helplessly.  "I don't even know what to think."  He was even less sure of what he was supposed to be feeling.  Numb and nervy didn't seem much of a response to a man who was still his closest friend, even if they had - if they'd - they'd fucked.  "You changed everything," Daniel blurted out, not really meaning to, regretting it instantly.  This was the last thing he wanted to get into.

"We'll make sense of it," Jack promised.  "We have to."

"I'm so tired," Daniel sighed, closing his eyes for a moment.

Jack's hand came up to cup his face and Daniel did well not to shift away from him.   
    
    


 

* * *

  
  


Even sitting at Daniel's side, Jack felt as if he were miles away.  The mood in the briefing room was cutting.  Daniel was doing his best, tying himself into knots trying to react naturally, but Jack could see the stiff nervousness he couldn't quite suppress.  Daniel was closing in on himself, withdrawing from Jack and from everyone else, and there was nothing he could do about it here.

"What would you say on the stand, Sam?" Daniel asked a little impatiently.

"I wouldn't lie!" Carter snapped defensively, unconsciously echoing what Jack had said earlier.

"I didn't suggest you would," Daniel rebuked her mildly.  "Only that your version of events opposes mine.  I don't know why you're arguing what is after all a matter of fact, not supposition.  You saw nothing to make you question your assessment of the situation on Mirin, you saw no evidence of systematic euthanasia and that is exactly what you would testify."

For once, Carter wasn't able to come up with a rebuttal to Daniel's mild observations.  She sat there in thwarted silence, her fingers twisting in contradiction of her seeming composure.  Fraiser was so anxious about her, she was practically in the chair with her.

Jack guessed he wasn't the only who could see where this was going.  Ugly.  Daniel wouldn't spare himself and because of it, he wouldn't spare Carter either.  A line was being drawn, sides taken, Daniel on one side and Carter on the other.  Teal'c had walked in, seen Daniel and Jack sitting together, then calmly walked right past Carter and Fraiser to skirt the foot of the table and take the chair next to Daniel's.  Hammond sat in his accustomed position at the head of them, looking about as grim as Jack had ever seen him.

The trouble, Jack thought, was that everyone wanted to do the right thing and it wasn't possible.  It was too late.  They'd been arguing fruitlessly in circles for over an hour now and he was beginning to understand that they were damned if they did and damned if they didn't.  They were not going to be able to find a solution to this.

"Answer the question, Carter," he ordered brusquely.  He didn't want to prolong the agony and the silences were the worst.  Everyone was hurting, everyone was questioning, everyone was going to carry the consequences of one of the worst fuck-ups of their careers.  It wasn't that he didn't care about his team, it was just that he cared about Daniel more.  "Did you see any evidence of euthanasia?"

Carter's lips thinned.  "No, Sir."

"Do you believe that Daniel did?" he asked coldly, not in the mood to cut her any slack.  He personally wasn't going to come off as Dudley Fucking Do-Right whether this got to a court martial or not but it didn't stop him resenting the hell out of Carter.  If she'd kept her big mouth shut and her mind open maybe a lot of this would have played out differently.  She was always so goddamned certain of everything.  Daniel had had no more information than she did.  He hadn't seen anything, been any place she hadn't.  Daniel had just put it all together in a way Carter maybe couldn't.  Maybe if Daniel hadn’t talked to her, Jack would be able to swallow this.  As it was, he wasn't inclined to help her wriggle off this hook of her own making.  And his.

"Do you, Sam?" Daniel asked softly.  "Can you trust me enough to accept your own limitations?"

Hammond made a hasty movement, as if he would object, then he subsided, indicating to Sam she should answer the question.

"Can you accept that I was right and you were wrong on the basis of what I saw and you didn't?  Not only on what we discussed, but on the questions I asked later of the Conclave, the answers I was given?" Daniel went on, his voice still soft but oddly intent.

Carter was struggling to tell Daniel what he wanted and needed, even deserved to hear, and even though they could all see how much she was hurting Daniel, she couldn't make herself do it.

"How many old people did you see, Sam?" Daniel asked more quietly still.

This was the difference, the only one that Jack knew.  Daniel walking back from the Stargate after they waved off Carter and Teal'c, edgy and quiet, looking around him at the tree-lined streets and all the shiny, happy people, by trying to get Jack to see what he did.  None of the Mirin they saw were old.  None.

Daniel was no one's fool.  He connected the dots right to the penicillin and the many, many detailed questions the Mirin doctors asked about its lovely toxic side-effects.  Demonstrating proper, commendable scientific caution, apparently, according to Carter.  Daniel didn't confront, he didn't compromise.  He just asked questions.  Lots of questions.  History and myth, physiology and law, medicine and religion.  And because the questions were each so innocent in themselves, he got answers.

The Speaker wasn't a fool either, he'd played this routine a thousand times before and it all went south on them quick and hard, the guard cutting them off even before they made it out of the enclave travellers were segregated in.

Carter was thinking now, thinking furiously, genuinely perplexed.

"Bring up the video footage you shot," Jack ordered.

She went at once to obey him, obviously glad to buy a little time.

"Mirin physiology is similar to our own, but it's not an exact copy," Fraiser piped up, trying to fill another difficult silence.  "It is possible their lifespan is naturally shorter."  She did not sound as if she believed this.  She sounded not-waving-but-drowning.

"He knows," Jack observed crisply before Daniel could answer, lacing his fingers together on the table before him.  He could at least look as if he were calm and controlled.  "He asked."  He noticed then that he and Teal'c were each clasping their hands the same way, both mirroring Daniel, who was too upset to be still.

Carter took her seat again, the remote in her hand as she cued up the mission footage on the monitor.

"Ignore the hospital stuff," Jack instructed.  "Just look at the crowd scenes.  The stuff in the streets and the Hall of Voices."  Checking through those scenes, she would see it now, he guessed, now she knew what it was she was supposed to be seeing.  He had.  He just needed Daniel to tell him and he saw it clear as day.  "Look at the people we weren't allowed to interact with or question."

Turning their chairs, Carter and Fraiser viewed the footage, skimming here, then pausing there, making a thorough job of it, advancing frame by frame.  Jack watched them until he could see the realisation, the same slow dawning horror he had felt, then, guessing Carter got the point now, he watched Daniel.

Weird how one of the best days of his life was also one of the worst.  Daniel was his if he could only hold onto him.  Jack had to get them through this somehow, then he had to get Daniel away.  There was too much grief, too much guilt and distance separating Daniel from the people he loved most and who had the most power to hurt him.  Jack couldn't see a way through which wouldn't destroy them all, whether the knowledge of what had happened on Mirin left the briefing room or not.

It had happened too often recently, Daniel having to stand and fight them all.  Jack had been wrong too often, Carter had been wrong, while Teal'c watched each of them, kept his own counsel and made his own choice who to follow just as he always did.

Jack didn't want to fight Daniel now, but he still didn't know whose side he was on.  He couldn't just walk away from this.  He had to take responsibility, had to give some sort of account of himself and the choices he'd made.

"Oh my god," Carter whispered as agonised realisation slammed home.

"Buy a clue, did we?" Jack drawled offensively, anger boiling up again from nowhere.

"Colonel," Hammond warned him.

"It appears DanielJackson was correct in his deductions," Teal'c observed.  "I do not believe it is possible for every adult Mirin to die of natural causes at the exact same age."

"No," Fraiser seconded him bitterly, "it isn't."

"It defies the uncertainty principle," Carter snapped.  "Why didn't I see it?" she burst out.

"I believe you thought only of O'Neill and DanielJackson," Teal'c answered her kindly.

"I should have seen it!" Carter argued angrily.

"Yes," Jack agreed icily, even though he hadn't either.  "But you didn't.  You didn't listen to Daniel."

"There is no doubt in anyone's mind that the Mirin are practicing euthanasia?" Hammond asked gravely, looking at each of them in turn.

"They needed the penicillin because the people are resistant to the existing methods, correct?" Fraiser confirmed curtly.  "Microbial resistance.  I'm guessing they were specifically interested in the penicillin allergens, in the possibility of synthesising a powerful toxin to induce instantaneous, fatal anaphylactic shock.  Sam," she hesitated with a quick, sidelong look to her friend, "reported the Mirin concerns over anaphylaxis."

"You call 'em when you know 'em, Doc."

"Jack."

Daniel's reproving eyes met Jack's for just a moment.  He nodded reluctantly in answer and sat back, trying to let his anger go for now for Daniel's sake.

"It's possible the antibiotic may not affect them at all," Fraiser suggested, looking down at the table top.  "Their physiology-"

"Wouldn't that be convenient?" Carter hooted abrasively, shaking her head in firm denial.  "We kept our end of the bargain, Janet.  We couldn't take that kind of risk."  She glanced fleetingly at Daniel, her face pinched with misery.  "We couldn't."

"I understand."  Daniel winced, or maybe he tried to smile.  "You acted in good faith and you each worked and compromised to get us home.  We do know that."

"It just doesn't change the fact we were wrong," Carter sighed, not about to go easy on herself.

"I'm not exactly Snow White, here, Carter," Jack interjected.  "I made the stellar decision to split the team.  Maybe four of us could have shot our way out of there when the Mirin decided to stack the deck in their favour, maybe not.  Two definitely couldn't."

"This is pointless," Daniel said tiredly.  "There won't be a court-martial.  There won't be any kind of enquiry or recommendation made outside this room.  If the General tries, the NID will bury it.  I know that you're all honourable people, that you take your oath of service to your country and your duty as Air Force officers seriously.  I know that you want closure and in a way, a court-martial would be the only closure conceivable."  Daniel's empathy and distress for what they were going through was very evident.  "I understand, I really do, but it won't happen."

"The threat to the President?" Hammond queried.

"Also the threat to me," Daniel pointed out hesitantly.

Carter snapped bolt-upright.  "To you?" she fired at Daniel, hostile and glowering.  Whatever this unknown threat was, it was clear it would have to get past her first.

Jack had a helluva team, for one reason.  His people were the best.

"Witness for the prosecution," Daniel reminded Carter gently.

"We've all seen the evidence," Carter argued aggressively.

"Circumstantial at best," Daniel retorted.

"So doing the right thing is the wrong thing?" Raging, Jack slammed his hand off the table and jumped up to pace off some of his frustration, prowling back and forth in front of the window which looked down on the Stargate.

"Dr. Jackson is correct," Hammond acknowledged heavily.  "Our careers would be over no matter the outcome if we compromised the security of this command and implicated the Joint Chiefs and the President as accessories to murder simply to assuage our own sense of guilt and culpability."

Something was niggling at Jack.  "The threat to you?" he asked Daniel sharply.

"I don't think the NID would hesitate to pile on the pressure in order to persuade General Hammond of the correct command decision," Daniel said calmly.  "Do you?  I could be removed from SG-1 or the SGC outright with very little effort."

"I wouldn't allow it!" Hammond retorted.

Daniel leaned forward, one long, elegantly precise finger tapping on the table top.  "As you would yourself be compromised, Sir, you wouldn't be able to prevent it.  Colonel Simmons has already made more than clear my manifest unsuitability for a position on a field unit."  He looked up at Jack then, his eyes a mystery.  "Too emotional."

"So maybe we should be looking at the worst case scenario?" Carter suggested, reviving a little over something she could think her way through.

Jack thought she sounded a helluva lot better than she looked.  He expected she'd be up nights for a very long time to come.  He couldn't help thinking that she should be.  An error like this could make as easily as it could break.  Carter had backbone.  She wouldn't run.  Experience was the hardest, perhaps the only teacher.  If she got through this, she'd be a better officer for it and maybe a better person.

"The worst case scenario would be a successful court-martial in which each of you receives a prison sentence, DanielJackson is removed from the SGC and I am re-located to Area 51 for medical experimentation."

They all looked around at Teal'c.

He smiled blandly back at them.

"While Colonel Simmons replaces General Hammond with a puppet of the NID," he added after a measured pause.

"Anything else?" Jack asked sarcastically.

Teal'c bowed.  "Senator Kinsey is elected President after the present incumbent is impeached, tried and sentenced to imprisonment."

"I think it's more likely that your USAF defence attorneys would destroy my credibility on the stand," Daniel said at last, still blinking over Teal'c's truly world-class pessimism.  "They won't even have to work very hard.  All they have to do is look over our mission reports and they'll find plenty to work with."

"Excuse me?" Jack sat back down, staring at Daniel as Carter and the others braced themselves for another argument.

"'It's not that we don't believe you, Daniel, it's just that we don't believe you'," Daniel quoted.  He reached up, his fingers running absently up his arm to his shoulder.  "I still have the scar from the staff weapon Teal'c - the alternate Teal'c - shot me with."

Jack took it hard that Daniel still remembered something like this after all the time that had passed and all they had done as a team.  "We acted on what you told us!" he objected.

"Only after Kinsey shut down the Stargate programme and you literally had nothing to lose," Daniel corrected him steadily.  "In a strange way, he saved the world," he added whimsically.  "If he hadn't acted as he did, I would have had to go through the gate on my own."

No one had a response for Daniel, glib or otherwise.

"That's just an example.  There are other missions, other reports."

"Pick one!" Jack fired at him, unable to believe what he was hearing.

Daniel looked at him for a very long time, the silence stretching out to breaking point.  "Sha'uri using the ribbon device to transmit to me knowledge of the Harsesis as Amaunet was killing me.  The powers of Oma Desala which were all around us and no one saw.  My suspicions of the Eurondans and their dirty little war.  The conflict between the Ghadmeer and the Enkarrans.  Seeing Stargates in my closet.  Getting addicted to a sarcophagus.  Hathor, Shyla, Ke'ra.  Having a Goa'uld for a wife and an ex-girlfriend.  Offering myself up as a host."

Jack figured this was enough, more than enough, that Daniel should move on and never look back.

"Getting ribboned - repeatedly.  Forcing Jack to choose between Skaara and me, Teal'c between Sha'uri and me.  Baiting sundry snakes after they've disarmed us.  Letting my brains get scrambled by Nem's memory device after he said it was too dangerous.  Having a grandfather who's spent the last twenty years in the loony bin and thought I was nuts.  Looking right into the eyes of a crystal skull despite the legend I told all of you about and getting myself shifted out of phase.  Trying to talk to empty rooms, sentient bacteria and the animals.  Filming plants.  Getting my brains scrambled by Shifu.  Getting addicted again and almost taking a swan-dive off my balcony.  I could go on."

"No!"

"Or there are my medical records," Daniel went on remorselessly.

Fraiser shifted uncomfortably in her seat, eyeing Daniel warily.

"Addiction, hallucinations," Daniel ticked off each point on his fingers. "Insanity."  He grimaced.  "It runs in the family.  Addiction - again, attempted suicide."

"Daniel," Carter objected distressfully, uselessly.

"You had visions and we went half-way across the universe on your say-so, Sam," Daniel shrugged as if this didn't matter to him at all.  "I had visions and I was locked away in Mental Health."

Suddenly looking as stricken as Carter, Fraiser's head dropped.

"Ultimately we were both right, but where Jack and the General supported you because of who you are, because of your reputation, it was easier for Dr. Fraiser and Dr. Mackenzie to write me off as psychotic than to investigate a physical cause for my hallucinations.  You all went along with that."  Daniel wasn't finding this easy to say, but he went on regardless.  "Because of who I am, because of what I'm considered to be, even by my own teammates.   On a good day, a little flaky."

Jack cringed.

"Dr. Jackson," Hammond protested.

"Tell me that if Sam saw Goa'uld in her closet you wouldn't have checked her exhaustively, then checked and re-checked until you found something, because it's Sam," Daniel proudly challenged Janet, all of them.  "Tell me."  He shook his head when Janet looked helplessly at him.  "You can't, can you?"

"We have every confidence in you, son."  His dismay evident, the general tried again to reassure Daniel.

"Absolutely," Daniel agreed wholeheartedly.  "After I prove to you what I'm saying.  I couldn't prove it to Sam, she only had my word something was very wrong on Mirin and it wasn't enough for her."

It had to build up, didn't it?  All those small, seemingly unimportant blows to confidence and self-esteem.  The glib remarks which kept Jack on top and cut Daniel so deep he didn't forget them.  It's not that we don't believe you?  Jesus.  How could he say something like that to Daniel?  How?

Jack was ugly inside, he knew that better than anyone.  Didn't want anyone else to know.  Except, Daniel did.  He understood all the rage and the guilt, the loathing, and he accepted.  He never tried to change Jack any more than he tried to excuse him.  Daniel didn't have that kind of arrogance.  He just had faith.  That Jack would hear him, accept him in turn, and maybe, just maybe, Jack would change himself.

He never knew that no one had hurt Daniel as much as he had.  No one else could.  He should have guessed.  Daniel didn't feel for anyone what he felt for Jack.  They'd shared the smallest part of what they were together on Mirin.  Jack wanted it passionately, that oneness.  He wanted Daniel but it was no longer clear to him that Daniel wanted him.  Too much baggage, too many rejections and small, incidental hurts inflicted he hadn't even seen.

"Alternatively, the NID could take away our only piece of circumstantial evidence in the mission tape and just cut my brake lines or something," Daniel pointed out oh-so-casually.  "Which would permanently solve the problem."

"I would not permit such a thing to happen," Teal'c said stonily, his eyes deadly.

"There's nothing we can do," Carter recognised the trap they were in, grieved and bewildered by her impotence.  "Nothing."

"There is not," Teal'c agreed softly.

"And we deserve it."  Jack was looking at Daniel, his head bowed low, alone with all his friends around him.  "We have to live with all of this because anything we do will hit Daniel harder than it hits us.  We fucked up!  Us!  Daniel does not pay for it.  Not this time."

"I'm struggling with all of this," General Hammond admitted.  "It is anathema to me to suppress an error of this magnitude.  We may have acted in ignorance and with the best of intentions but it doesn't change the consequences, not for the Mirin, not for us, and not for Dr. Jackson.  I find I cannot disagree with his remarkably cogent assessment of the likely response of the NID to the threat posed by any action we take at this point to expose our error.   They've committed far worse crimes than the suppression of evidence, the rigging of courts martial and the murder of civilians, a fact of which we are all too aware."

He looked at his abject first team, a proud man, and one who was suffering now.  "It seems that any response we make to this will be morally and ethically wrong.  It remains to decide which course of action will do the least harm to those for whom we've accepted responsibility and will best fulfil our obligations to this command and to the President."

"I can lie," Carter offered unsteadily, her eyes very bright.  "For Daniel, I will."

Teal'c bowed.  "As will I."

Fraiser nodded brusquely.

"Wouldn't be the first time," Jack said dryly.

Daniel lifted his head then.  "I don't have any choice," he said bleakly.

Hammond looked gently at him.  "Nor do I."


	3. Part Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slash: Jack and Daniel involved in a loving and committed relationship, which usually involves sex.  
> Rating: NC-17  
> Category: Angst. Drama. First Time. Friendship. Hurt/Comfort.  
> Season/Spoilers: Season 5. Spoilers for Seasons 1-5. Politics. Need. Legacy. Shades of Grey. Divide & Conquer. Failsafe. Menace. The Sentinel.  
> Synopsis: When Daniel's belief in himself and his place in the team are shaken to the core, can Jack help him find his true voice again?  
> Warnings: Angst and ambiguity make this quite dark in tone.

"Take a seat, Jack," Hammond invited.

Seething with impatience, Jack thudded gracelessly into the chair he yanked clear of Hammond's desk.  He wanted out, now.  Daniel had bolted away from him the moment Hammond dismissed them, Teal'c planting himself like a wall in front of Carter when she tried to go after him.  Jack did not have time.  He needed to find Daniel and fix this.

"Appalled doesn't begin to cover how I feel," Hammond admitted with difficulty.

"Ya think?" Jack snarled.  "We were dead.  Dead.  That was the upside!  It was clean.  At least, being dead, we were clear of it."  Just like the poor dumb bastard Mirin.

"Colonel!" Hammond protested, perhaps reflexively.

Actually looking at him for the first time, Jack realised Hammond looked old.  He was a good and moral person, hell, they all were, or tried to be, and no one was getting off easy here.  No one.

"I'm sorry," Jack blurted, meaning it.

"The irony of this situation does not escape me, Jack.  The only thing we can do to protect Dr. Jackson and this command is to lie and cover up the fact."  It really hurt Hammond to have to say this.

"I ordered Carter to destroy all the evidence, cover our tracks.  After she takes care of the Mirin tape, the briefing room footage will have an accident it won't recover from," Jack informed his C.O. curtly.

"I'm deeply concerned about SG-1, Jack."

"Tell me about it."

"I'm standing you down, effective immediately."

"About what I'd expected," Jack sighed, crossing his arms over his chest.  He didn't have the energy to raise even a token protest.  The two of them were finding it hard to maintain eye contact and they didn't have to cover each other's backs off-world.  He didn't expect it was going to be any easier for him anywhere near Carter.

"You have to find a way to work together again, to trust one another," Hammond informed him quietly.  An order, not a suggestion.

"And if we can't?" It had to be faced.  Jack wasn't sure they could get back from this.

"You know as well as I do."

"I have no idea if Daniel and Carter can work together now or maybe ever, and if they can't, one of them will have to transfer off the team.  Three guesses who that will be," Jack spat angrily, hating it all, himself included.

"Your preference?"

Jack couldn't answer that.  Heart or head, he wanted Daniel.  He loved him.  It would kill Daniel to be taken from the team but this shouldn't weigh with Jack, should it?  He was obligated to make the correct command decision.  His team trusted him with their lives.  Wasn't this exactly why he was supposed to keep it in his pants?  So he could at least pretend to be the good little team leader and USAF drone?  Right now he couldn't separate the personal from the professional and wasn't sure he could ever manage that again.  It was treacherous of him to admit he wasn't sure if he could work with Carter again, he was so goddamned angry with her, but it was also the truth.

"Then I'll tell you mine," Hammond offered with more grace than Jack could find.  "SG-1 is the first contact team.  Dr. Jackson is an archaeologist, true, but he is also our expert on the ancient cultures seeding the galaxy and he is a uniquely gifted linguist.  We've been trying for five years now to replicate his skills in our Air Force personnel and even civilians and have not succeeded.  You have only to look at his workload to understand that.  We need him both off-world and here."

"It's more than Daniel's skills!" Jack objected angrily, raw on this point.  "You heard him out there.  It's the way he thinks.  Not just outside the box but off the goddamn wall sometimes."  Little thanks it got him, too.  Not that Daniel was entirely right, Jack had had moments where he'd made the wrong decision, absolutely so, made it because it was Daniel asking.  No other reason.  None.  What felt so wrong would turn out right and Daniel really, really needed to hear that right now.  He should have been hearing it all along.

"He's more than our linguist, he's our voice!" Jack argued passionately.  "He thinks and says what we don't and can't, and he reaches people.  Like him or loathe him, Daniel has an effect on everyone.  Jesus, General, even the godless Tok'ra think he's inspirational!  They came right out and said it."

"I agree."

Braced for an argument, Jack floundered, understanding in the marked silence which followed just how right Daniel was and how hard it was going to be to work past this.  Hammond was looking at him with a good deal of comprehension, which didn't make it any easier on Jack he hadn’t considered for a second it would be Carter who would be transferred off SG-1 if he couldn't rebuild his team.

"The primary function of SG-1 is first contact," Hammond reiterated unnecessarily.

"Which means communication," Jack acknowledged edgily, aware of how deceitful he was being.  If ever there was a time he could confess his feelings for Daniel to his C.O., this was it.  Probably the only time.  Hammond could break up the team, Jack's part disguised by the sweeping changes.  He could sit home and eat bon-bons while Daniel and Teal'c and some high-flyer he hated already saved the world.  Yeah.  Right.  Like hell he could.  Daniel was going nowhere without him, not now, not ever.  Daniel was his.

"Major Carter's skills have been required repeatedly here on base and she has sufficient seniority and command experience to lead an SG team dedicated to technological and scientific missions both here and off-world."

"Sideways promotion?"  Carter would hate it but Jack could live with it and more importantly, so could Daniel.  He guessed Teal'c's decision was already made.  Like Daniel, the big guy had a way of cutting through the bull and however hard it hit his loving teammates, he never let loyalty or friendship get in the way of duty.  Teal'c served a greater purpose and nothing and no one stood in his way, not even Carter.  He would die for each and every one of them, but he would also walk away from them if he had to.  As he had on several occasions previously, actually.  Teal'c would stay with the team which did his cause most good.  He'd stay with SG-1.

"What else can I do, Jack?" Hammond asked directly.  He sighed and rubbed his eyes, his face in his hands for several weary seconds.  "If you can't rebuild your team I'll have no choice but to break it up.  Dr. Jackson and Major Carter need to be made aware of their options and we'll take it from there."  He made a quick call, sending his aide scrambling to summon Daniel and Carter, then sat back, staring at nothing.  "It appears we each have fences to mend with Dr. Jackson," he reflected quietly.

Jack's gut clenched.   
    
    


 

* * *

  
  


"I want to see Daniel!" Sam's voice was shrill and angry.

"I do not believe it would be wise at this time, Major Carter," Teal'c insisted implacably.

"I can't believe you're doing this," Sam gasped.  "Taking sides!"

"I have little choice."

Daniel got up from his desk, then found he couldn't make himself go out to Sam.  He stood rooted to the spot.  There was no reassurance he could make, no exculpation he could offer.  He had nothing to give.  He was desolate and angry, angrier than he'd ever been in his life and he couldn't - he just couldn't bear.

"God."

He'd really done it this time.  Feelings he'd never wanted to face had festered, come boiling out when they were all least prepared to deal with them.  He hadn't known himself how much resentment he felt for the way his teammates treated him.  He always seemed to be the one out in the cold.  He'd coped.  Or thought he had.  Intellectually he accepted there would always be times his position was diametrically opposed to that of his teammates, that they would always clash.

Refusing to let himself see how this made him feel, though?  Wasn't he supposed to be smarter than this?  Certainly smart enough to know his problems didn't go away just because he ignored them.  They simply multiplied.

Shifu had taught him a lesson once, let him face his own dark side in a dream.  Daniel did resent his friends at times, he was hurt by them and their treatment of him.  He'd seen the consequences of those feelings in his dream and had too easily attributed it to the lesson and the influence of the Goa'uld memories.

He was able to intellectualise it.  He just hadn't been able to deal with it.  He should have talked to Jack and the others then, but he hadn't.  He just bottled it all up inside again and tried to move on from it as best he could.

Daniel was thirty-six years old and he'd never been sure enough of anyone to be angry with them.

Only - only Jack.

Blindly, Daniel sat down again, burying his face in his folded arms, the leaves of an open book comforting against his cheek.  There was so much cutting at him he couldn't seem to think at all.  He sat shaking, his lips and fingertips tingling, a buzz in his head, like white noise, blanking everything.  His inertia was alien and frightening, his mind so sluggish it was hard for him to even grasp he was in shock.

He gradually became aware of a solid presence guarding his back, the gentle clasp of a hand.  It wasn't Jack and so he did nothing.   
    
    


 

* * *

  
  


"Sirs," Carter greeted Jack and Hammond tensely as she slipped into the proffered chair, looking smaller than Jack had ever seen her.

"I'm sure I don't need to explain to you why you're here, Major Carter," Hammond said kindly.

Carter glanced up at Jack and as quickly away.  "General, if I may?"

"Go on," Hammond invited.

"Daniel and I work well together," Carter told him.  "If we'd been together, I'm sure," she stumbled over this, trying hard not to sound as if she were shifting blame onto Jack for splitting the team, her tone apologetic, "we would have seen the truth of what was happening on Mirin."

"I have no doubt of that, Major," Hammond acknowledged.  "The two of you have worked well together.  I'm proud of SG-1 and all you've accomplished as a team."

Carter didn't relax at this.  Quite the contrary.  Not missing the general's use of the past tense, she was stiffening up.

"A situation like this forces me to question the purpose of the team, Major, to clarify the focus of not just SG-1 but of every field unit under my command," Hammond went on.

Jack had to admire his professionalism.  He knew in his gut he'd never make half the general Hammond was.  Maybe never make general at all.  Sometimes he couldn't see past his own feelings and he certainly couldn't always separate out and respect the individual the way Hammond was doing right now for Carter.

"SG-1 was formed to be our primary first contact field unit, with the other SG teams in support according to the specialism of each."  Hammond clasped his hands together, resting neatly on his desk.  It was the best he could do to look relaxed, to make what he was saying sound reasonable and measured, not a knee-jerk, reactionary judgement.  "This focus has become blurred over time with an increasing emphasis on military engagements and the retrieval of technology."

"Our standing orders," Carter began.

"Are dependent upon successful communication in the first instance," Hammond smoothly overrode whatever objection Carter had been about to make.

"The President agreed that we would evaluate the scientific and cultural elements of each mission," Carter reminded him sharply.

"We will continue to do so," Hammond assured her.  "I cannot disguise the gravity of this situation, Major, or the consequences we are all facing.  I'm standing down SG-1 effective immediately.  You all deserve the opportunity to rebuild trust and to decide together if you can work as a team again after what has happened today."

Carter's mouth fell open as the general laid it on the line, but there was no protest she could make.  It was a generous and genuine offer.  She took a deep breath.  "If - if we can't?"

"Then I'll have to review the disposition of the team."

"Sir?"  Carter lifted her head proudly, trying to take it on the chin.

"I've been considering the formation of a new field unit," Hammond informed her gently.  "One dedicated to scientific and technological missions, working closely with the various specialist military and civilian teams on base and at our off-world research facilities."

Carter's already pale face greyed and Jack realised she could finally see it coming, just about the last thing she'd expected.

"Lieutenant Hailey would be an ideal recruit for SG-16, along with two experienced technical sergeants.   You and she have developed something of a rapport and your skills are complementary.  I'd like you to consider heading up the team, Major," Hammond offered Carter a graceful out.

Jack couldn't look Carter in the eye and say it was a promotion, not when he knew what the team meant to her, the loyalty she felt to her teammates.  No one knew what they'd all been through together.  No one.  He could only hope they could get through this.  He might be mad at the world right now, but he didn't want to lose her.

"Don't rush this decision," Hammond instructed.  "Take your time and discuss it with your teammates."

And there it was.

Jack had to admire the way Hammond had done this, laying it on the line without taking Carter's self-respect.  It was literally the best the general could do and maybe the only way the SGC could keep Carter if she couldn't stay on SG-1.  Jack knew as well as anyone the Stargate was her life.  Carter could read this as a punishment or as an opportunity and the choice was hers, even though she would never thank them for it.

"Sir," Carter acknowledged expressionlessly, too devastated to do or say anything more, protocol auto-pilot and discipline getting her through.

And now it was Daniel's turn.   
    
    


 

* * *

  
  


"I don't understand."

"Major Carter is considering taking command of a new SG team," the general patiently explained again.

"Sam?"

Jack winced at Daniel's utter incredulity.  He was sitting in the chair next to Jack's, nursing a steaming mug of coffee between cold hands, literally unable to take in that his ass wasn't already off the team.  As far as Daniel was concerned, there had been no question of who would have to go if they couldn't work through all this.  It really hurt Jack that he'd played any part in making Daniel think and feel this way.

"I'd prefer SG-1 to go on as it is," Hammond said delicately, "but if you can't work together I'll be forced to make other arrangements."

"I don't know," Daniel admitted with stark honesty.  "I'm trying so hard not to - to blame."  He cut off what he was about to say, tried to speak again then subsided into strained silence.

Daniel looked so desolate, so defenceless, Jack was sick with anger and sorrow for him.  He was very afraid of losing him.  He'd seen a part of Daniel he'd never known and was sure he was never meant to know.  Finding out this way how Daniel really felt about him, at the core, was not something he would be shaking off any time soon.

With all of his crass, careless cruelties cumulating over time, how could Daniel love him?  How in hell could he get them past all these doubts and show Daniel that whatever had happened between them in the past, Jack was with him now?

He loved Daniel.  It wasn't ever going to change.  He'd lived more than half his life and he wanted to spend the rest of it with Daniel.  He knew how deeply he touched him, how close they could be.  When they made love together there were no doubts, no distance.  They needed to find their connection again.  Everything would flow from that, everything was possible.  Jack just needed to be given the chance, but he wasn't sure Daniel would ever let him touch him again.

"You don't have to do anything right now," he promised Daniel compassionately.  "We all need some time to come to terms with what's happened before we can even begin to think about the future of the team."

"I don't want Sam to - I mean," Daniel stammered painfully.

"Ultimately that isn't your decision, Dr. Jackson," Hammond interpreted this without difficulty.  "Or Major Carter's.  I have a responsibility to act in the best interests of this command and I've determined that your place is with SG-1."  The gentle look was very evident.  "This is not negotiable and your resignation will not be accepted."

"No," Jack snapped.  "It won't."

Daniel coloured and covered his guilty start with a careless sip of scalding coffee.

"I need you," Jack promised.  "I can't function - as team leader," he added after a fractional hesitation, "without you.  Not the way I'm supposed to."  He really hoped Hammond was going easy on him too, because he had no idea what he was trying to say here let alone what it sounded like.

"Perhaps that's something the two of you can talk about," the general suggested seriously.

Jack guessed it was too much to hope Hammond had missed all the by-play during the debriefing.  The general knew how much work Jack had to do here and none of it should be necessary.

What was he supposed to do?  Tell Daniel to get in his face more?  Take it personally, call Jack on being such a bastard instead of accepting him?

If Jack couldn't get Daniel back, then he guessed his ass was off SG-1 too.  He kind of hoped Hammond wasn't thinking that far ahead.  Then he caught Daniel's quick, nervous sidelong look and realised Daniel was.

"I'm sorry.  I don't feel - I just want to," Daniel's words tumbled out in a rush.

"I understand," Hammond soothed him.  "This has been a terrible ordeal.  Take all the time you need, son."

Daniel got up then and stood looking blankly at the door, as if he'd forgotten what he was supposed to be doing.

"Dismissed," the general said at once as Jack got hurriedly to his feet and took Daniel's arm.  "Take care of our boy, Jack."

"I intend to," Jack promised grimly.

Teal'c was waiting for them outside, hovering like an expectant father.

"I'm still on the team," Daniel blurted out stupidly.

Teal'c inclined his head.  "I expected nothing less."  He stepped forward, putting his hand on Daniel's shoulder.  "Are you alright, DanielJackson?"

Jack found he did not care for this at all.

"No."  Daniel gave them both that horrible little wince he probably thought was a smile.  "No, I'm not."

Teal'c seemed to think this was as it should be, nodding calmly before he moved back out of Daniel's personal space.  "Dr. Fraiser has taken Major Carter home.  She wished to speak with DanielJackson but I would not permit it."  He looked kindly at Daniel.  "I did not believe you were ready to hear her.  Your anger will cool in time, as will hers.  You may then begin to see one another clearly.  I will help each of you as much as I am able.  I remain a friend to you both."

"I'm not sure Sam sees it that way," Daniel fretted.  "She already thinks you're taking sides."

Carter, Jack thought, wasn't wrong.  "Feel like going after her?" he hinted broadly to Teal'c.  "Put her mind at ease."

Teal'c considered this in silence.

"I'd like to have a team at the end of all this," Jack declared.  "This one!"

"As you wish, O'Neill," Teal'c assented graciously.  "I will speak with General Hammond, then I will follow."

"Tell Sam," Daniel said impulsively, then couldn't think of anything else to say.

"I will say that you are thinking of her," Teal'c suggested with conscious irony.

Jack figured this was fair enough.  Daniel wouldn't be panicking about him until they were alone together.  "I'm taking Daniel home," he announced.  "He's in no state to be here.  And honestly, neither am I."   
    
    


 

* * *

  
  


Daniel jerked awake, blinking furiously, glancing awkwardly around as the world slowly came back into focus.  It took a while for blurred shapes to sharpen and make sense.  They were parked across the street from his building and Jack was just sitting there, turned toward him, watching him.

"I must've fallen asleep," Daniel inanely - and far too loudly - stated the obvious.

"We've been here a while," Jack remarked.  "I didn't have the heart to wake you."

All at once feeling confined and claustrophobic, Daniel shivered convulsively.  He was starting to wonder if he would ever be warm again.  He smiled fleetingly in Jack's general direction, mumbled his thanks for the ride and tumbled out of the truck.

He wasn't remotely surprised Jack caught him up before he even reached the sidewalk.

"Nice try," Jack remarked casually.  "But not a chance in hell, Dannyboy."

"I hate when you call me that," Daniel snapped irritably, jerking reflexively from the hand resting with easy familiarity at the small of his back as they went inside.  "Jack, please," he hissed, self-consciously eyeing the doorman who was watching their brisk, pissy progress across the lobby.

"He can't tell just by looking," Jack responded somewhat obscurely.

"Tell what?"

Jack leaned in as he called the elevator.  "That I fucked you," he whispered.

His face flaming scarlet, Daniel's mouth fell open in shock.  Jack led him, stuttering and unresisting, onto the elevator.

Daniel would have given anything to refute this infuriating assumption but innate honesty left him choked and furious with Jack for making him feel so small.

"Should I have said 'made love'?" Jack asked.

His head swimming as the elevator soared, Daniel scowled at him.

"Seriously," Jack said mildly.  "No one is more aware than I am that this," he gestured almost diffidently from Daniel to himself, "is a language neither of us speaks."

It was really aggravating that Jack got him off the elevator before he could formulate a response to this.

"If you're more comfortable with - er - romantic euphemisms," Jack suggested carefully, "I'll give it my best shot."  He nodded vaguely at the walls as he steered them down the hallway, his hand once more finding Daniel's back.  "I can do that."

Daniel was drearily grateful to see his front door ahead of him.  He didn't know what was keeping him going but every trudging step he took weighed more heavily on him.  He felt as if he were wading through mud, his limbs tense and uncoordinated.  He wished he could stop this god-awful shivering.

He let them in, shoved the keys in Jack's direction and made for his bedroom and the warmest sweater he could find.  He tossed his coat carelessly on the bed and stumbled up the steps to his closet, fumbling through the folded woollens until he found his black turtleneck, soft, blessedly thick, ribbed lambswool.  Daniel stripped and neatly disposed of his laundry, mechanically following his customary, ingrained routine, before pulling on the sweater, teaming it with warm, loose black jersey sweats and thick socks.

He stood a moment, cold hands stuffed under his armpits, shaking and staring at nothing, listening to Jack's movements around the apartment, thinking maybe Jack was right.  They didn't speak this language.

He wished he knew what to do.

"Daniel?"

It was small and childish, but panic shifted him out of his bedroom before Jack could come into it.  They ran into one another, literally, outside his always open door.

Jack held Daniel, touching him lightly at his waist as he stared down, eyes hungrily tracking over his face and down, over his chest and body.  "God, you look amazing," Jack murmured huskily, obviously liking and wanting what he saw.

"You want me."  Daniel was agonisingly slow and stupid tonight.  "It wasn't just - you - you meant," he whispered.

"Everything."

Jack took hold of him and pulled him close, his chin resting on Daniel's shoulder, nuzzling their faces together.

Daniel stood rigid and ungainly, trying to hold himself apart, but Jack was warm, the only heat on Mirin, the only heat for him now and he could do nothing but fall.  He let go and held on and Jack was there for him.

"I've got you, baby," Jack promised faithfully as Daniel's uncertain arms crept around him, his relief a brittle thing.  He had his hooks in so deep, Daniel couldn't push him away.  What he did with that should be the good thing, the right thing, but he wanted Daniel to be with him, and look at him, so fucking noble he couldn't even stop his body responding to Daniel's nearness.

Abruptly, Daniel tilted back his head to stare up into Jack's face, his eyes startled and questioning behind the glinting, masking lenses.

"I've got some sensitivity, you know," Jack complained, slightly hurt, but more guilty.  "I'm not making a pass.  It's just," he trailed off awkwardly.

"Just?"

"You," Jack mumbled, desperately embarrassed.  "You feel good, you smell good, you look," he bit this thought off, trying to head his unruly libido off the pass.  "It's you."

"Oh."  Daniel let go of Jack and waited, colour rising again over his pale face, for Jack to let go of him.

Jack didn't want to.  Daniel had to push at his arms to make him and even then, his reluctance showed.

"Me," Daniel uttered, uncomprehending, as he stumbled away in the direction of his kitchen.

"I know it's the worst time," Jack said gloomily as he trailed after Daniel, "I just can't stop thinking about how we were together."  He still didn't know if he was supposed to say fucking or making love, Daniel wasn't the sentimental type but then he wasn't the profane type either.  He was a guy, though.  He was completely a guy.  Just, a sensitive, extremely educated and exceedingly erudite, New Age kind of a guy.

"Neither can I," Daniel told him, glancing back over his shoulder as he was filling his coffee pot.

"What?"  Jack was having a hard time keeping up with himself tonight, let alone Daniel.

"Can't stop thinking about it either," Daniel said woodenly, "Which is almost funny, because until now, I couldn't think of anything at all."

"You don't have much experience, do you?" Jack wondered why it had never occurred to him to ask.  "Not with guys," he amended impatiently.  "I mean sex.  Sex in general."

Busy at the stove, Daniel's back got ramrod stiff but he didn't deny it.

"I guess I always knew that," Jack puzzled over it.  "You never seem aware."  That fit, that was what he'd seen.  "Not of me, not of anyone.  Not really."

"I have too much to think about," Daniel told his coffee pot in a strange little monotone, as if Jack hadn't spoken.  "This is classic displacement.  I can't deal with Mirin, I can't deal with Sam or the team or anything, so I'm obsessing on - on-"

"Freaking out because we fucked and it was the best sex of your life?"

Daniel turned to reach for two mugs with hands which shook.  "You're such a bastard, Jack," he whispered.

Jack walked over and put his arms around Daniel, hugging him close.  "I know."

"Are you scared?"

"Of losing you?  You know I am."

They stood that way listening to the slow drip as the coffee pot filled and it was Jack who poured the coffee for them both.  Daniel just wandered away, sitting with a graceless thump in the nearest chair, his back once more to Jack.

"I'm shattered."  Daniel looked up as Jack slid a mug in front of him, then put his own down at the place opposite.  "I could give you the dictionary definition," he rambled on as Jack pulled out the chair and sat.

"I know what it means."

"Sorry.  I'm not used to this," Daniel apologised.

Jack quirked an eyebrow as he gulped down some coffee.

"Anyone being here," Daniel explained, "when I'm like this."

"Shattered?"  Jack grimaced.  "Get used to it.  I'll always be here."  He clinked his mug off Daniel's, slopping coffee.  "To us."

Daniel guessed they were both thinking the same thing, the memory stood out sharp where so much else was greyed and chilling.

"I'm holding you to your promise.  You know the one."

"You can't."

"I can try," Jack swore.

"You're right," Daniel said inconsequentially.  "This is the worst time."

"You're not saying no."

"I'm not saying anything," Daniel corrected him.  "I can't think, Jack.  I really can't."  He took a sip of his coffee, strong and bitter as his mood.  "I keep trying, but my thoughts scatter.  I just can't seem to comprehend the enormity.  My mind goes back to Mirin again and again, to all those people, and it should be here.  We have to deal with it here."

Jack smiled at him then, a smile that came from his heart and gentled his dark eyes.  "Maybe that's because there aren't any answers here, Daniel.  You don't know if you can fix this, if you can work with Carter.  If you can work with me," he admitted with blunt honesty.  "We hurt you and I guess you make it too easy for us not to know it."  The smile faded but his soft eyes held Daniel transfixed.  "Don't do that again.  Promise me.  Promise you'll tell me."

"I can't be without you, Jack."  Daniel found himself blinking furiously against a treacherous sting in his eyes, his chest crowded with misery.  "I don't want to be."

Jack toasted him ironically.  "Makes two of us."

"I should be thinking about Sam."

"Fuck Carter," Jack riposted.  "Think about me."

"This is your official position as SG-1's team leader?" Daniel snapped.

"We're lovers," Jack snapped back.  "I can't divorce the personal from the professional, no matter how inconvenient it is for you.  And before you start, it isn't because of the sex."  He scowled at Daniel's irritated incredulity.  "Not only because of the sex," he amended ungraciously.  "For your information, I haven't been able to separate out those feelings for a long time.  Maybe even from the start."

"I take it that's my fault?" Daniel demanded indignantly.

"All yours," Jack agreed, grinning.  "You've been nothing but trouble from the moment I first laid eyes on you," he accused, a certain indulgence suggesting he rather liked this about Daniel.  "I should have never let you bullshit your way onto my team for that first mission through the Stargate.  Should've made you stay home where you were safe, meant no when I said no, stopped listening when you started talking.  Kept my distance.  My balance."  His grin was fading into another intent, hungry look, his eyes roaming restlessly over Daniel's face.  "I need you on my team, sure, but I need way more than that.  You're my best friend, y'know?"

Daniel sat flushed and breathless, finding it impossible to meet Jack's eyes with all this - this extravagance.

"We were going great.  Then a while back I started noticing my best friend, started seeing you differently than I had before.  It wasn't sudden or dramatic.  No violins or anything.  I didn't just take a look and instantly realise how gorgeous you are and how blind I'd been," Jack reminisced, a tad solemn, futzing absently with his mug, gazing reflectively at Daniel.  "More like it was always there and I just kind of let myself know it."  He pulled a face as if this explanation wasn't quite there, but was the best he could do.  "It's been a long time since I looked at you without wanting you and you're more to me even than that."  Jack waited then, smiling a little, searching for the right words.  "I need you to just be around the whole time," he said finally, quietly satisfied.

It was more than Jack had ever been able to say to Daniel, more than he would ever be prepared to hear.  He couldn't say anything, his vocal chords frozen while the rest of him flamed.

Jack got up then, swaggering around the end of the table, his hands outstretched.  He took Daniel by the shoulders and pulled him up, obviously liking having his hands on him.

Knowing exactly how physical Jack wanted to be with him, Daniel couldn't speak, but he reached up, his fingers curling around Jack's elbows.

"I so want to kiss you," Jack sighed, staring longingly at Daniel's mouth as he backed him past the library table then down into the living room, dropping down onto the smaller couch with him, an arm hugging tight around his shoulders.  "I'm a lost cause, you know," he sighed mournfully, teasing a bit.  "I even like how shy you get."

Well, Daniel had every excuse for that.  It wasn't every day your best friend told you he loved you!  Not - not in so many words, just in ways that counted.  Small ways, like not kissing him, even though Jack probably knew he could.

"Wha," Daniel swallowed painfully, "What are we going to do?"

"Whatever you want," Jack said placidly.  "This is about you and about us, Carter and me.  You want to talk to her, her with me?"

"You can't." Daniel objected, watching frowningly as Jack's other arm snuck heavy across his chest, smug hands meeting to clasp comfortably at Daniel's shoulder.

"I can," Jack contradicted.

"You can't.  I wouldn't know if you were there as team leader or just as - as you," Daniel argued.  Warmth was spreading through his body, tingling everywhere Jack touched.

"Both of me are on your side," Jack insisted, curious fingers exploring the ribbed knit of the sweater. Or the contours of Daniel's bicep beneath.

"At least one of you should be fair to Sam!"

"We figured we'd leave that to you," Jack countered lazily.

It cut deep, Daniel's breath whooshing out in a gasp he couldn't quite contain.

"Daniel?" Jack demanded sharply, immediately concerned, wondering what it was he'd said.

"It's nothing," Daniel's face twisted.  "Just - just something I realised about myself."

"Not good?" Jack asked with wary sympathy.

"Something I used to think was a strength," Daniel admitted reluctantly.  "Now I'm not so sure."  He looked around impulsively at Jack.  "You've always amazed me, how you could get so mad at people, how badly you could treat us and still know we'd come back to you.  You turn on the charm and we melt and forgive you, of course we do.  How can you do that?  How'd you get to be so certain?"

"You're not that easy a nut to crack," Jack said carefully, trying to read Daniel's mood.  "Weren't you listening back there?  No one ever smacked me upside the head the way you do, Daniel.  No one talks to me the way you do, no one makes me do anything.  No one but you."  He was unsure whether to say more or not and then he just went for it.  "I do it for you."

"Trouble?"

"With a capital 'T'."

"Can we talk together?" Daniel suggested, needing to get something - anything - resolved as he found himself immersed in ever deeper waters.  "The four of us?"

"If that's what you want."

"I think we need to.  Teal'c - he's everyone's friend and yet he still has that distance, that clarity."  Bashfully, Daniel turned into the all-too-welcome heat of Jack's body, easing that much closer, though his fingers were nervously pleating the fabric stretched taut over his thighs.  "The kind that lets him walk away from us.  I trust that about him, that he'll tell it like it is."

"We can do that."

"Here," Daniel decided, "and soon."  He still cared about Sam!

Jack was wryly appreciative of this strategy, pulling away from Daniel with a rueful comment about doing it before he changed his mind, loping up the steps towards the phone with something approaching his usual energy.

As he got up to follow, Daniel's stomach growled loudly, startling them both.  Jack chuckled and looked better for it.

"After three - make that four weeks, you have any food left in that fancy kitchen of yours?" Jack asked hopefully.

"The freezer," Daniel said distractedly, peering around as if it had moved on its own.  "I always keep stuff - I make extra, you never-"

"Yadda," Jack prompted gently.

The old joke punched through Daniel's defences.  "Don't worry, Jack.  It's not like I can walk away."  He remembered losing himself in the incredible freedom on Mirin, how he could have anything of Jack, reaching out now to touch him.  His fingers were trembling as he skimmed over the whiskery skin.  He had to see if he could do it, he had to know.  It was true what he'd said.  He couldn't walk away, not from Jack.

Jack was taking his hand and it was awkward, they both seemed to be in the way, but Daniel reached up regardless and pressed his mouth against Jack's for a few strained seconds.  He couldn't call it a kiss.  Not even close.  Jack just stood there, his fingers clamped bruisingly around Daniel's wrist, both of them staring and breathing hard.

"Don't," Jack hissed fiercely, spots of colour burning in his cheeks.  "I'm trying!"

"So am I!" Daniel flared, angry all over again.

"I'm not going to push you back into bed with me!  How could you even think?" Jack snarled, pushing away Daniel's hand.

"I don't!  I just needed to know if - if," Daniel tried to explain as he fumbled for a chair and sat down.  He felt light-headed.  Unreal.  "I'm so embarrassed, Jack.  It's - it's desperate."   Daniel's head began again to buzz, memory so intense he could almost feel Jack stroking inside him, a curl of heat quivering deep in his gut.  He felt stripped to the bone, the privacy he'd surrendered up a grievous loss to him now, when it mattered.  It was a big part of who he was, a part of himself he guarded from everyone.  Jack hadn't taken it, Daniel had given it up and still he felt cheated because now he didn't feel able to shut Jack out.

His dignity - it was best not to think about that, about being fucked.  Best not to think about Jack taking him, driving his body with such disciplined perfection on the thin, hard pallet.  He'd never intended for Jack to know him that way, to have everything of him.  It had never been a possibility.  Nothing he could be open to.  His studies were his life, his discoveries through the Stargate and in himself.  That was all his passion, all his fulfilment.  Here, at home, he was quiet, private.  Content.  All this was gone now and in its place were confusion and Jack, looking at him the whole time and seeing the sex.

"Don't look like that, Daniel, please," Jack pleaded, dropping to his haunches in front of Daniel.  "I can't change what happened between us.  I can't even pretend I want to.  You know I want us to go on."

"I made a choice on Mirin, Jack," Daniel said shakily.  "I didn't know I'd have to live with it."


	4. Part Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slash: Jack and Daniel involved in a loving and committed relationship, which usually involves sex.  
> Rating: NC-17  
> Category: Angst. Drama. First Time. Friendship. Hurt/Comfort.  
> Season/Spoilers: Season 5. Spoilers for Seasons 1-5. Politics. Need. Legacy. Shades of Grey. Divide & Conquer. Failsafe. Menace. The Sentinel.  
> Synopsis: When Daniel's belief in himself and his place in the team are shaken to the core, can Jack help him find his true voice again?  
> Warnings: Angst and ambiguity make this quite dark in tone.

When Jack awoke, parched and disoriented, in Daniel's spare bed, he didn't know what stupefied him most.  The fact he'd slept or the fact Daniel hadn't booted his ass right out the door last night.

Way to go, O'Neill.

Seriously.

Did it ever, at any point, actually occur to him that Daniel was not only shit-scared, but absolutely mortified?  Daniel blamed himself for Mirin, he hurt for the people and for having to lie, he hated the fighting, his friendship with Carter was teetering on the brink, ready to take down the team and maybe all of them with it, and of course, just to really round out the misery, every time he looked at Jack he was realising just that bit more how completely he'd exposed himself.

Allowing another man inside you, giving your body like that, it wasn't a small thing.  When you hadn't looked for it, hadn't wanted it and had to live with it and the guy who did it, it was a terrible thing.

It might help if Jack could forget for a while what it was to be buried ecstatic balls-deep in Daniel and try, really, really try to keep in mind how it was for Daniel, having Jack watching him and remembering this, how he felt and tasted, smelled, the soft, breathy, pleasured sounds he made in sex.

Jack untangled himself from the quilt, rolled out of the bed and into the bathroom and took care of business.  Washed, brushed and more or less straightened up, he slunk around to Daniel's bedroom door.  After opening it with infinite care, he stuck his head round the door and the rest of him naturally followed.  Blessing bare feet and Special Ops training, he crept up to the bed.  Daniel lay on his stomach, his limbs sprawled.  Hair deliciously rumpled, his face was turned towards Jack, the grey light of dawn filtering through the blinds to soften his perfect features.

How could I love you more, Jack thought, his heart thumping painfully in the crush of feeling, overwhelming, possessive and pitying at once.  Daniel looked so exhausted and they'd barely begun.  Teal'c and Carter would be here in an hour or so, to talk, to listen, decide what they could.  If they could.  Jack didn't know if he would have a team at the end of it but of one thing he was certain.

He sat on the bed as Daniel frowned in his sleep and stirred, disturbed by Jack's presence in space which was wholly his.  His face was the first thing Daniel saw when he opened red-rimmed eyes.

"I'll retire if I have to," Jack said simply.  "I let it all go on Mirin and what was left was all you."

Daniel's face quivered, then his fingers curled over Jack's.

They stayed like that for a while, barely touching, quiet, until the room warmed and the silence grew easy, something close to familiar.  They were still friends and there was still comfort here.   
    
    


 

* * *

  
  


Startled by the sound of his door bell, Daniel squinted at his alarm clock, trying to bring the numbers into focus as he rapidly did up the last few buttons on his blue shirt.  He gave up then, tucked his shirt into his slate grey chinos and trotted over to the bureau to put on his glasses.  It was barely six-thirty, which he guessed meant Sam had gotten about as much sleep as he had last night.  Combing impatient fingers through his damp hair, Daniel headed out into the living room.

Sam was there, dressed to impress in her smart powder-blue leather jacket, a vivid silky knit and tight jeans which looked as if they cost twice what any of his did.  She looked good until Daniel came close enough to see her eyes, shadowed beneath the make-up she wore.  The light flooding in from the open doors to the balcony didn't flatter as she frowned up at Jack and Teal'c, perhaps assessing their moods and guessing at sides taken.

It was a familiar space to Daniel, though not comfortable.  He'd often been where Sam was now, trying to figure out who was for him and who against, who could be swayed to reason or would remain obdurate and impatient.  Then angry.  Dismissive.  Hurtful.  He wondered how it felt to Sam, to be on the outside, looking in.

How long had it been since he was happily oblivious to all of this?  When was it, exactly, that Jack stopped listening to him?  Since he had been forced to question?  Himself, most of all.

"DanielJackson," Teal'c greeted him, proffering a bag of doughnuts, still warm, which he placed with all due ceremony in the centre of the table next to the coffee pot, the scent of cinnamon heavy in the air.  "Major Carter did not eat," he informed them.

Daniel's stomach growled loudly.

"Tell me about it," Jack muttered, plaintive eyes dwelling fondly on the bakery bag.

It was an unobtrusive switch, deftly done by Jack, but when they sat, Daniel found himself next to Jack and opposite Teal'c, not Sam.  He guessed it was some tactical thing Sam would read, but this wasn't a game he played or chose to care for.  He didn't have the energy.  Daniel confined himself to pouring coffee, sliding across mugs, sugar, cream.  Jack was deep in the doughnut bag, behaving scrupulously normally.  It didn't cover for the fact Daniel and Sam hadn't found a word to say to each other, hadn't even looked at one another.

"Whose judgement are you questioning?" Daniel asked her softly.  "Yours?  Or mine?"

Teal'c frowned over this, tilting his questioning face towards Sam as she took a deliberate sip of her coffee, the mug nursed between both hands.

"Before you answer that, Carter," Jack said curtly, "I'd remind you that there were two of us on Mirin.  If you were up all night figuring maybe, just maybe, Daniel was wrong, then you wasted your time."

"Is that what you think of me?" Sam asked Daniel, not Jack.

"Sometimes," Daniel admitted regretfully, feeling he had no choice to be honest.  He didn't want this to be adversarial, about anger or blame.  The team was supposed to be coming together, not splitting apart.  The only option they were left with was honesty if they were to go on.  Each of them had to know where they stood.

"When?" Sam began defensively.

"Plenty," Jack interrupted, taking a huge bite of his doughnut and gratefully toasting Teal'c with the remainder.

Sam seemed genuinely shocked.

Daniel shook his head, staring down uneasily into his coffee mug, not understanding how Sam couldn't see this in herself.  He'd always thought it was the tendency of any self-aware individual to be overly-critical, to be more aware of flaws than strengths.  It was what he did and he was nothing out of the ordinary.

"I don't need to be right!" Sam protested, getting upset.  "Not - not that way!"

"You do not?" Teal'c enquired mildly, inviting Sam to explain.

"Teal'c!" Sam gasped in dismay.

"No, I know what Sam means," Daniel interjected hastily, wanting to be fair.  "I understand.  I really do.  You - you get lost in the science," he suggested shyly.  It was a love, an excitement they shared.  There were other things too, maybe too unkind to say.  Sam's competitiveness was sharpened at times by what seemed to Daniel to be a deep-seated need for approval, a core part of Sam's makeup, the soldier in her not always in accord with the scientist.  Sam fitted the Air Force in a way Jack didn't and Daniel never knew if he had the right to fault her for it.  Her need for structure, security and validation was an understandable one even to a man like him, even though it wasn't a drive he shared.  He'd learned a long time ago to stand on his own.

Sam's face softened.  "You do, too," she offered tentatively.

This was something easy in their friendship, the quality which helped them click in the beginning.  Neither thought the other obsessive, driven, geeky - the epithets too often applied to people caught up in the pure, fulfilling joy of research and discovery.  It was the strongest reaction people seemed to have to Daniel, even total strangers.  The irony was that Jack, one of the worst offenders, had seemingly fallen for him despite it.  At some point, he was going to have ask Jack why.

"It isn't personal with Daniel."

Even though Jack sounded puzzled as he said this, as if he were just working this out for himself, Sam stiffened up again, taking it as a criticism.

Reminding himself he wasn't the only one with feelings, with an investment here, Daniel gratefully gulped down some of his coffee and held his tongue.  Nothing would silence Jack when he had something to say.

"It is with you, Carter.  Personal."  Jack still didn't seem angry.  He was thoughtful, assessing.  "I guess the distinction got kind of blurred for me there because it's not like you have any choice about following my orders."

"Daniel does!" Sam snapped, biting off the comment as if she instantly regretted it, with a quick, almost apologetic look to Daniel.

He understood.  It wasn't easy on any of them to be so at odds.  Conflict - division - hurt.  It had to, they were all too close and cared too much.  More than a team.  A family was how he thought of them.  Home.

"DanielJackson chooses to follow O'Neill," Teal'c reminded her, "As do I."

"This is not about Daniel," Jack grated, firing up into his infamous pissed protector mode.

"Perhaps it is," Daniel countered, "for Sam."  He looked hesitantly across at her.  "Do you think maybe we should just be absolutely straight with one another?  Small things can be important and how can anyone change what they don't know?"  It occurred to him as soon as he'd said this that Sam wasn't free to speak out at all, that she was the only one who wasn't, and he turned instinctively, appealingly, to Jack, whose scowl slowly, slowly dissolved, apparently against his will.

"For cryin' out loud!" Jack hissed, tearing into another doughnut snatched at random from the bag.

Taking this embittered complaint as a 'yes', Daniel looked expectantly at Sam, hoping she would feel confident enough to go on with what she'd been about to say.  Sam was assertive enough to speak up for herself in any situation but she guarded her privacy as closely as Daniel guarded his own.  As much as she identified herself with the Air Force, there were parts of her life, opinions and beliefs she kept strictly separate.

"I understand the difference between you two," Jack pointedly picked up the thread of his own argument again before anyone else could speak.

Daniel gritted his teeth.  Sometimes he wished he could believe Jack was as dumb as he liked to act out because he was so much harder to take when he did things like this, his crassness disguising a subtle, effective put-down.  Oh, Sam could speak up, alright, just so long as she remembered her place and who it was she was speaking to.

Was this what Jack meant when he said he was different with Daniel than anyone else?  Sam didn't know Jack all that well, they weren't intimate, their closeness that of colleagues and comrades, a distinction in his friendships Jack made and Sam understood in a way Daniel didn't.  Maybe she didn’t know how Jack was with everyone in his life, but she knew how he was with Daniel, the equality between the two of them not extended to her.  For someone as bright and capable as Sam, this had to rankle.  She accepted the chain of command, had said once she couldn't imagine not being in the Air Force, but with Daniel freed from many of the constraints which bound her, she had a daily reminder of what she was denied.

It sobered Daniel.  Whatever changes he could affect in himself, it was beyond his power to change Jack on so deep a level.  Even Jack didn't understand what it was about Daniel which allowed him to reach Jack when no one else could.  There had been plenty of times when he would have walked away from Daniel if he'd been able to.

"Are we boring you?"

The sharp question from Jack jerked Daniel from his reverie, flushing and discomposed.

"Daniel," Jack said loudly, "does not take things personally.  You do," he fired at Sam.  "You want credit for your discoveries, you want to be right, you want to be best, hell, you want to be first."

Sam shot a filthy look back at Jack but said nothing.  She knew him too well to interrupt him when he was in this mood.  He wouldn't hear her anyway.

Daniel had let himself lose sight of how angry Jack was, with the Mirin, with Sam, and his heart sank.  Jack was dangerous like this, too apt to act and damn the consequences.  He would make his point, slam it home, then he would cool down and rely on that charm of his to win you back.  Not this time.  Jack had to be careful.  Anything he said here, he couldn't take back and he couldn't make right.  If they lost Sam, it would be for good.  She would do anything for them but if she had to, she would move on without them.  She was too focused, too goal-oriented not to.

"Respect, credibility - those are important to you.  I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that," Jack added, quite genuinely.  "It's just who you are.  A difference.  You're a conformist."

"You are not," Teal'c retorted, darkly amused.

"I'm not attacking you, Carter," Jack said with some sincerity.

Daniel guessed this meant Jack's intent wasn't to attack, but his delivery was another matter entirely.

"I'm trying to understand the differences, how we could make Daniel feel the way he does, why it's so often the three of us against him."  Jack shrugged deprecatingly, as if this didn't matter to him quite as much as it sounded.  "Daniel is our voice, he's what helps us find the humanity in a situation, but where does that responsibility come with a cast-iron guarantee he'll say anything we want to hear?  Ever?  It's the antithesis of all we've been trained to do and for damned good reason."

"Why is it always about Daniel?" Sam asked before she could stop herself.

"O'Neill sees no one else," Teal'c announced unexpectedly, his serene conviction silencing everyone.  He looked inscrutably at Jack.  "When you and DanielJackson are at odds, when you will not hear him, the balance of this team is lost.  Major Carter may agree with DanielJackson but she must obey you, O'Neill.  You know this."

Jack's sullen look suggested he knew nothing of the kind.

"Thus two will always side against one, whatever choice Major Carter might make were she free to do so.  Nor do I always agree with DanielJackson," Teal'c admitted fairly.

"You don't always act when you do," Daniel reminded him, then he looked at Jack and Sam.  "Do you think I haven't thought about this?  I understand," he assured them, feeling it was inadequate, "I - I accept this is the way things will always be."

"It is not the way things always were, Daniel," Teal'c countered.  "There are times O'Neill will not hear you, though he should, times when I believe he would have listened to you in the past.  It is this which isolates you from us."

"Everything that happens on SG-1 is my responsibility," Jack acknowledged grudgingly without actually answering Teal'c.

"Teal'c is right, Sir," Sam backed him up, loyalty to her team, her friends, winning out over her misery and angry defensiveness.  "There are times you won't hear Daniel, times you hear no one else."

Jack didn't like hearing this, that much was obvious, but he didn't seem able to deny it.

"I'm not attacking you, Sir," Sam parroted Jack with cool, deliberate irony.  "It's just a d-"

"Difference?" Jack drawled witheringly.  "You want to know the difference?  Daniel doesn't think about himself.  He doesn't even see himself!  He would never look at one of my oldest friends dying in front of me and see only an opportunity," he spat, "A science paper with his name on it."

"Wh-what?" Daniel stammered as Sam jerked back in reaction, as if she'd been slapped.

"That is an extreme example, O'Neill," Teal'c rebuked him sternly, frowning.

"Sam?" Daniel tried to ask as Jack shouted over the top of him, arguing furiously with Teal'c, their voices battering at Daniel as he tried to reach Sam, willing her to meet him, to connect.

Closing her eyes, Sam turned her head away from Daniel.  She was white to the lips.

"Jack, please," Daniel pleaded urgently, distressed for Sam and this reminder of her callousness, however unthinking and aberrant it had been.  He knew what it was to lose himself, he shared that energy and passion, but he - he saw people.  Hoped he did.  He was sorry for Jack too, seemingly still not able to let this go.  Keeping score was ugly but sometimes Jack was and no one knew it better than he.  "Please," he whispered confidentially, appealing directly to Jack.  "This isn't helping."

"Then what will?" Jack demanded, still glaring at Sam's bowed head.

"I don't know!  I only know that people are dying and it's our fault!" Daniel cried.

"My fault, you mean," Sam contradicted him steadily.

"You can be so blind sometimes, so rigid."  Daniel took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.  He was so tense, he felt as if his head were pulsing.  "As if what you know is all there is."  He slumped in his chair, shaky and anxious.  Splintering.  "How many times have I been right, Sam?  How many times have I put you on the path you didn't see?" he appealed to her.  "You make those pronouncements with so much authority, people listen and trust and you can be so wrong."

"Do you think it's easy?" Sam asked him, her voice shaking.  "Everyone looking to me, needing not just the answer but my belief in it?  With the base at risk, the gate and all our lives on the line, the whole damned world, they're looking for that certainty, they demand it of me and they deserve it.  I won't let them down.  I can't!"

"You don't." Daniel picked up his glasses, turning them nervously between his hands.  "When you're right.  What about the times you're wrong, Sam?  You're too certain.  Too cautious.  Sometimes, arrogant."

"And you're reckless, naïve, overly-passionate and question everything!" Sam retorted.  "Everything we do, everything we are.  Everything that matters.  You make us question.  You make us doubt."

"We try to do the right thing," Daniel reminded her.  "All of us.  We have enough differences, enough strengths that we each contribute, enough in common that we complement, we balance.  We're a team, Sam, part of something greater than each of us alone, something I've never had before, something I've learned from you!" he argued passionately.  Weren't they all supposed to learn, to grow?

"The balance has been lost," Teal'c soberly reminded them.

"Because I didn't question and you did," Sam told Daniel bitterly.  "Daniel isn't perfect," she snapped, turning suddenly to Jack.  "He's let us down before now, made mistakes which hurt us, and he's still on the team.  Remember Shyla?"

"You don't know anything about that, Carter," Jack denied icily, glowering.

"I know Daniel got us into that situation in the first place after he impulsively exposed our position.  I know he was completely out of his depth dealing alone with Shyla's manipulations and he let himself get addicted to the sarcophagus, almost getting us killed in the process," Sam said determinedly.

"You seem very certain," Jack purred, sleek and seething.  "Is there any room in all that certainty for the part I played?  Breaking out of that prison without ensuring all my team were out of the shackles?  Without even checking?  I walked away and left Daniel.  Me!  None of us even looked back to see if he was safe, if he could follow.  He got out of his depth because I got him killed!" he hissed savagely.  "Does that compute?  The roof fell in on him.  I put him in the sarcophagus, not Shyla."

"So you accepted him back onto the team because you felt guilty?"  Sam looked sick at heart, hating having to fight, cornered and regretting everything.

"I accepted him back onto the team because I trusted him."

"You did?" Daniel blurted out.

Jack's head snapped around.  "Of course I did!"

Daniel was shaking his head, his denial instinctual.  "Not always, Jack.  Not even close.  If you did, I wouldn't," he faltered.  He wouldn't have started to question, to doubt.  He wouldn't have looked at Sam, his friend, and found he got nothing back.  He wouldn't have been faced, feeling as if his heart were punched out, by a man he didn't know, cutting into him with accusations that it was never over with him.  It wasn't about him!  His team - his friends - had closed ranks against him, only Teal'c caring to reach out, Jack and Sam impossibly cold and distant.  It had taken him too long to understand he couldn't reach them and to withdraw, to see that he was with them but not of them, not any longer.  A necessary adjunct, nothing more, as if all their mutual history had been erased.  They hadn't even seen him.

"You believe Sam, Jack.  You accept her certainty, you trust," Daniel said drearily.  "You don't learn, though.  You haven't learned to trust Sam less or me more.  You question me and not her.  I feel I have to prove myself to you every time.  To all of you.  I don't have that acceptance, I don't have your certainty.  Sometimes, I don't even have your attention.  It wears on me."

"Is that why you left us?" Sam asked intently, searching his face.

"You left me," Daniel contradicted.  "You were right there and I was alone.  I - I could never figure out why.  What I did."

"Daniel," Sam protested, whispering and achy, blinking furiously.  She dashed her fingertips beneath her eyes, her face working.  She knew what Daniel meant.  Knew it exactly.  "It wasn't you.  Never you.  Just - a mistake."  She glanced at Jack and away.  "A grievous error of judgement," she added coldly.

Teal'c turned to her and she met his gaze, something passing between them, something private.

"You know what my problem was," Jack told Daniel flatly.  "You knew on Mirin."

This left Daniel without a word he could say in response.

"I have lived longer than anyone here," Teal'c spoke softly into the silence.  "I have seen and done much in my life which has changed me, made choices which have darkened my soul and for which I bear a burden of guilt and responsibility.  I am not the man I once was nor am I the man I once dreamed I would be.  The man I am lives and will die free."  He smiled gently at each of them.  "Are your choices any easier?  We have found and lost friends and allies, and even each other.  None of us are what we once were.  I have changed.  Have not you?"

"He's right," Sam sighed.  "We've grown together over time and sometimes grown apart.  The team has evolved because we have.  I'm - I'm harder than I was," she confessed, fidgeting nervously.  "Not so open, not so curious.  Staying alive means more sometimes than living."  She sat back, rubbing the edge of the table, thinking while they all watched her and waited.  "I feel more a soldier than a scientist."

"We fight a war," Teal'c reminded her.  "Our fate is uncertain each time we step through the Stargate to a new world.  We do not know if we will find friend or foe.  Trust has grown between us over time, but it may be that-"

"Familiarity breeds contempt?" Jack interrupted abrasively.  "We know each other's faults and we're less tolerant of them."

"Not all change is welcome," Teal'c agreed, looking straight at Daniel.

"No," Sam agreed, comprehending his meaning without difficulty.  "It isn't.  Daniel has changed too.  Part of me expects him to cover my back, relies on it, and part of me hates to see what it's doing to him.  Like I've failed somehow."

"I feel this also."

"I'm not a pacifist," Daniel objected.  "I knew what I was getting into."

"Did you?" Sam's eyebrows rose.  "Did any of us?"

"We're a combat unit," Jack stated.  "Hammond was right about our purpose being muddied.  We started out as a combat unit with an intelligence officer who happened to be a civilian, a linguist and archaeologist.  I knew that going in.  Daniel proposed and the President agreed that we would assess the scientific and cultural value of each mission, which blunted our focus in the pursuit of military advantage through the acquisition of allies and advanced technologies.  Our remit may be exploration and first contact - essentially communication, but Teal'c is right, we never know what we're walking into.  Every time we wind up in a shit storm, I'm less inclined to ask nice the next time."

"I agree with Daniel," Sam piped up.  "But I also agree with you, Sir."

"Can you reconcile the two?" Daniel asked her.

"Not always."

"It seems to me that our missions have changed over the past couple of years," Jack stated, turning a little towards Daniel.  "We're no longer a first contact unit.  We shouldn't even kid ourselves that we explore any more.  All we do is firefight.  Too many battles, off-world and here.  We have to face-off to scum like Kinsey, Maybourne and Simmons, we have to compromise and make deals.  Off-world, our allies, and I use the term loosely, are only interested in winding us up and setting us off.  When it's our turn, when we need help, the Tok'ra, the Tollan, the Nox, even the Asgard, they all sing the same damned tune.  Can't and won't," Jack frowned darkly.  "We go off-world and find ourselves in one catastrophe or war zone after another.  When did that become the function of SG-1?  SG-2 and SG-3 were assigned to carry out tactical missions, not us.  It isn't just the tactical focus we have now, on and off base.  I see our mission assignments revolving more and more around Carter's skills and abilities, on hard science and technology, while SG-5 and SG-11 do - what?  We're just one more team among many now and even Hammond knows it.  We've lost our edge, we've lost what made us stand apart from every other team."  Jack smiled at Daniel just a little, regretful and reflective at once.  "We've lost Daniel."

Sam was frozen, sitting rigid and watchful, not meeting anyone's eyes.

"Daniel's right in what he said to you, Carter," Jack went on, not troubling himself to turn to look at her.  "He asks questions you don't, he has ideas you dismiss, he puts you on the path you don't see.  All of us, in fact.  Ironic how easy it is to see that sitting here and so hard to see at the time."  Jack nodded at this, satisfied with his assessment.  "You have the ideas, Daniel, but it's Carter who does the talking, it's Carter everyone remembers."

"You're holding me responsible for that, Sir?" Angry incredulity sharpened Sam's tone.

"Not so long ago we were ass-deep in frozen naquadah on our very own re-run of 'Armageddon'," Jack said almost absently, still staring at Daniel.  "I remember you giving up, Carter, telling us it couldn't be done.  It was Daniel who came up with the solution.  Daniel.  He asked the question, started to tell us his solution, but it was you who took over.  You did his talking for him and you were still talking back on base."

"That isn't important," Daniel insisted stubbornly, his chin tilting proudly, deeply uncomfortable at encroaching on something so very personal to Sam, so difficult for her.  He wasn't driven to be the best and the first, to win approval, he didn’t need external validation the way Sam did.  He was anxious for her, not wanting her to be hurt any more than she had been and tried to turn the subject.  "The flow of ideas, the truth.  Learning and discovery.  That's what's important, Jack!"

Jack's face softened as if he got this, as if it meant something to him.  "Did you credit Daniel during the briefing, Major?  Or in your report?  I don't recall."

"General Hammond was interested only in the result, O'Neill," Teal'c answered before Sam could.  "He did not care who found the solution, only that it was successful and the Earth was saved.  He congratulated us all."

"I care," Jack calmly countered.  "Who remembers the contribution Daniel makes if we don't?"

"I do," Daniel mumbled, not meaning to.

"I guess that makes it even more galling that even we treat you like a flake.  Carter included."

Daniel found it so difficult to stand against Jack when he was this compassionate, this understanding.

Jack turned on Sam suddenly, proving his empathy was reserved for Daniel alone.  "You should remember, Major.  You should know.  Is there a problem here?  Is this what you mean by working well together?"

"It is not!" Sam denied fiercely.  "I would never steal credit from Daniel, never!"

Daniel's face twisted, an involuntary response.  He dropped his head quickly, covering by pulling his mug towards him.  He didn't want to say, he didn't want it to show.  Sometimes, it did matter.  A lot.  Sometimes, he needed Sam to know.  It hurt him, bottled up inside until it exploded out in a dream and lesson in which he took such pleasure in Sam's pain, a pain he'd enjoyed inflicting, some part of him, buried deep, believing she deserved it.

Sam in the dream stepped in and took over from him, Hammond turning so easily to her and not to him.  Jealousy and competition.  He was not proud he'd seen Sam most in those terms, failing to find the great goodness in her character, the many qualities about his friend he valued and trusted.  He wasn't proud.

"Daniel?" Sam whispered, stricken, her eyes pleading with him.

"Not stealing."  He wasn't quick enough to cover his reaction and now he could do nothing but face her.  She was a person of such integrity but she was also human.  Fallible, no matter what drove her.  "You get - sometimes you get a little lost."

"For what it's worth, Carter, I agree with Daniel," Jack backed him up.  "I don't believe for a second you did it deliberately or that you even knew.  Daniel is not good at the personal stuff so he'd be the last one to tell you he had a problem and Teal'c and I usually glaze over at the touchy-feely pat-on-the-back stuff," he shrugged.

"Unless it's for you," Daniel contradicted sarcastically.  "Then it should never get old."

"Touché," Jack acknowledged, his face lighting into a wicked grin.  "Take time for a little personal assessing, Carter," he ordered fluently.

This, coming from Jack, left Sam choked and furious.

"There are consequences, Carter," Jack sternly asserted, visibly unimpressed by her response.  "Not for you but for Daniel.  Your judgement is not called into question but Daniel's is.  He's the one who winds up isolated, sidelined even."  He looked steadily at each of them, thinking again and none too happy with his conclusions.

"I don't know how the focus of the team has become blunted, why everything that favours the skills which Carter, Teal'c and I have has to come at Daniel's expense," he mused aloud, talking more to himself than to them.

"The Stargate program used to be the greatest endeavour of man, it used to be your life," Jack reminded Daniel, genuinely perplexed.  "Both of you," he added generously, sparing a momentary glance for Sam.  "I never believed you could be planted in front of a panel of alien text and all you'd see was months of tedious boring tediousness, Daniel.  I remember a time you'd be thrilled and it wasn't even that long ago.  Unless you get right in our faces, telling us nothing we want to hear, it's like we don't see you any more," Jack was soft with apology.  "I don't know how or when I let that happen."

"I've tried to change, to stay with you."  Daniel's fingers twisted nervously.  He wished he didn't have to expose so much of himself but with all Sam was facing, could he offer anything less?  He didn't want to lose her.  "I never know if I've changed enough or too much.  It's never right.  I'm never," he faltered on the brink of self-pity.  "I think sometimes you'd be better off without me, if you took another military officer, a linguist, someone who would see what you see, who would be with you and not against.  And then something will happen, and you'll need me.  I can't walk away from you so I do what I can.  Sam is challenged, you all are, and I - I try to be content."

"It is not enough, DanielJackson," Teal'c said sadly.

"No," Jack said strongly, "It isn't."  He sat back in his chair, cold and collected, quite decided.  "We're a team of four, not of three and it's about goddamned time we started acting like it.  Hammond is giving us a chance, all of us," he emphasised, looking significantly at Sam, who was deathly quiet. "He wants us sharp and focused, fulfilling our primary mission objectives: first contact and exploration."

"We can't go back to the way we were."  Sam cleared her throat.  "We're not those people any more."

"We can move on," Jack offered.  "What's happened here - Mirin - was in a way a wake-up call we needed.  How much longer could we have gone on without these tensions exploding?  We're all feeling the strain, this much is finally obvious even to me.  We are getting hardened, more defensive and less willing to extend help to others which we've learned through experience won't be reciprocated.  If the way the team is now is the way any of us wants it to be, if we want to continue on with our emphasis on tactical and technological missions, then we can transfer to another team without prejudice."  He was deadly serious.  "Hammond has made it clear SG-1 will go on and that Daniel will be part of it.  The rest of us have to choose."

"I will remain with SG-1."  Teal'c bowed his head, unperturbed by Jack's ultimatum.

"It's my team," Jack snapped, visibly annoyed that Teal'c had beaten him to the punch.  "I can make nice with the natives," he informed Daniel, not wholly convincingly, "and I enjoy nothing better than a poking around with you in old ruins."  Having smoothly reduced Daniel to speechless, scarlet-faced confusion, Jack turned his attention to Sam.  "Major?" he invited.

"Is it me or Daniel?  Or is there room for us both?" Sam said directly.

"Both," Daniel said at once.

"Both," Jack agreed.  "If you can work together."

"I thought we could but apparently I've been wrong about a lot of things," Sam snapped.

"We all have blind spots, Carter, even you," Jack drawled cynically, not giving an inch.  "Yours compromised everyone here, the general and the SGC, and ultimately, will help kill a whole lot of people.  You can learn from it or you can let it take you down."

Jack was relentless when he started, they'd all seen him get this way before.  Daniel could pull him out of it, sometimes.  Before.  He'd been here, with Jack in his face, using everything he could to hurt him.  Sam had seen this too, but now it was her.  Jack had to know what his approval meant to her, it was a needed constant she could measure herself by.  He would know but it wouldn't stop him, not until he was done.  Daniel couldn't reach Jack and Sam couldn't take it, she wasn't like him, Jack had never left her devastated.

"That's enough, Jack!  Enough!"

He was splintering, the pain in his head like a live thing, shoving away from the table to stumble drunkenly out to the balcony, bracing his hands against the cold brass rail, bowed low as he gulped in clean air.  He sensed a presence behind him but was too far gone to react, folding his arms and dropping his head down to rest.

"All those people."

It was Sam, abject.  Appalled.

"I can't stop thinking.  I shouldn't."  Her voice broke and she too gulped in air, moving up to stand at Daniel's side.  "I wouldn't have done anything differently, Daniel.  I've turned it over and over in my mind, talked it through with Teal'c a dozen times and still, there's nothing I would change.  Nothing I could.  I did my best.  It was for you and the colonel, I couldn't do anything less.  It would still be wrong.  I'm wrong."

It didn't feel to him that Sam wanted him to reassure her.  She just needed to say this to someone and the habit of trust went deep between them.  Some things she could only say to him, some experiences she couldn't share with Janet.  They weren't the same.  Team was family, a family Sam chose, and she gave herself to it entirely.

No one knew what they'd been through together or what they were to one another.  Daniel didn't want to give any part of it up.  If he and Sam could only meet half-way, find again the empathy and excitement they used to share in discovery.

He straightened up, saying nothing, staring out at the waking city, his vision dancing.

"I couldn't say," Sam murmured, "not with the colonel there.  I guess I've been blind to a lot of things because I truly never meant to hurt you.  I didn't know that I was.  Don't you trust me enough to tell me?"

"It isn't like that."

"No?"

"I don't have your certainty, Sam."

She looked around at him, upset and uncomprehending.  "Not enough to be mad at me?"  She couldn't believe this and then she saw something in Daniel's face she hated and it hurt her like hell.  "I didn't think I had to say the words.  I always thought you knew!  I'm a better person for knowing you, Daniel.  I love you."  She didn't dare to touch him, her hand simply slid closer to his on the rail.  "Be certain!" she said fiercely.

Daniel didn't know what to say, didn't think there was anything he could say.  He put his hand over Sam's.

"I'm fairly certain of you too," Sam acknowledged sweetly, accepting.

On an easier day, she might have hugged him but this was the best they could do.

"Do you want to stay on the team, Sam?  Can you?"

"Can I?" Sam parroted, bitterness apparent.  "It was made clear to me this is not my choice.  I," she paused, picking her words, "hurt the general too.  And Janet."  She choked up again, fighting her emotion, her failure.  "I can't quit and I can't stay.  I want to stay but it feels wrong.  Like the command the general offered me.  I'm scared, Daniel.  Scared to stay and scared to go.  I can't run from myself, the colonel is right about that at least, whatever else he - never mind," she changed the subject hastily, hot resentment flaring for a moment.  "I have to deal with this, try to work out what to do."

It was difficult for Daniel to empathise with Sam when he couldn't even remember the first time his belief in himself had been stripped from him.  It was so long ago.  He'd been knocked down so hard and so often he was never quite sure himself why he didn't stay down.  Stubbornness, maybe.

"Learn," he suggested tentatively.  "Don't rationalise, Sam.  Don't excuse.  Failure is also potential for growth and self-realisation.  You need to find the strength to stand alone, to take risks with yourself and to be wrong.  If you measure yourself by any standard but your own," he suggested delicately, "ultimately you'll fail.  Don't look at other people, look within."  God, did he sound like one of those self-improvement books?

Sam's head was quirked towards him.  She was at least listening.

"Most of us don't have the abilities or the advantages you have or the reinforcement I guess you've always enjoyed for your hard work.  It's a part of your core identity but not the best part."  Could he be any more direct than this?  "You thought we were good, Sam, but we weren't, not always.  I don't want to have to fight again and again for your belief because you won't take a risk for me, because you're measuring yourself against an impossible external standard and caution is safer than censure."

"Is that what you think of me?"  She read the answer in his face, moving her hand out from under his to fold her arms across her chest.  "My ego is bigger than both of us, is that what you're saying?"  She glanced back into the apartment, scowling.  "The colonel seemed to think so."

"I need to work with you, Sam, not against," Daniel explained patiently.  "That's all I'm saying.  It's not about me and it shouldn't be about you, but about both of us.  We're not in competition."

"Not any more," Sam said almost to herself, "I lost."

Daniel was too tired to ask what she meant by that.  Intellectually, he could understand what a blow to her it was to be the one selected to leave the team if they couldn't resolve their differences, but he didn't know what he could do for her.  This was a crisis of confidence he felt she needed to see through herself.  Maybe when she could think more clearly, Sam would be able to articulate not only what she needed from him but what she could give.

They would all have to give.  Daniel was far from perfect, he was causing his own tensions in the team but he'd taken as much as he could and he needed something back.  He had to have Jack's support and he had to have something more from Sam than she had been able to give for a long time.  She had to effect some changes in herself, at the least recognise the need, or he didn't know where they could go from here.  He just couldn't do this anymore.

"Will you help me?" Sam asked, nakedly vulnerable.

"You know I will, any way I can."

"I don't want to be cautious, Daniel."  She was blinking hard suddenly, the threatened tears close once again.  "I want to be with my team."

"Then start with this."  Daniel looked gravely around at her.  "You tell me you love me, you tell me to be certain."

Sam was stiffening up, her face growing wary again.

"On Mirin I asked you to trust me, Sam, to have faith in my judgement.  You didn't agree and you didn't question your judgement, only mine.  Could you not have checked into my concerns for me, for no other reason than we’re friends and I needed it from you?"

She didn't know what to say to him, didn’t know where to start, her mouth working soundlessly.

"I believed you could.  I was ready to die, believing it."  He shook his head, still very far from understanding all that had happened.  "I was wrong, though, and I don’t know what to do with that."

It was very clear to them both that Sam didn't either.


	5. Part Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slash: Jack and Daniel involved in a loving and committed relationship, which usually involves sex.  
> Rating: NC-17  
> Category: Angst. Drama. First Time. Friendship. Hurt/Comfort.  
> Season/Spoilers: Season 5. Spoilers for Seasons 1-5. Politics. Need. Legacy. Shades of Grey. Divide & Conquer. Failsafe. Menace. The Sentinel.  
> Synopsis: When Daniel's belief in himself and his place in the team are shaken to the core, can Jack help him find his true voice again?  
> Warnings: Angst and ambiguity make this quite dark in tone.

"I know left from right, Jack," Daniel bitched.  "Apparently you don't?"

"Excuse me?" Jack enquired politely, glad to see Daniel was starting to feel a little more feisty.

"The mountain is that way," Daniel jabbed a finger to the right.

"Kathy's Kitchen is this way," Jack responded imperturbably, taking the left.

"I'm not hungry," Daniel denied sullenly.

"I am."

"You've had four doughnuts."

"That's as much as I've eaten in about four weeks."

"We'll be late."

"Do I look as if I care?"

Daniel's eyebrows soared as he did his pissy thing, which always seemed to involve his entire face making a statement.

"Home-cured ham and eggs," Jack drawled dreamily, expertly taking another tight left turn into the narrow private road which ran through the trees.  "Fresh-baked bread and fluffy pancakes.  Biscuits and raspberry preserves."

Daniel's stomach growled.  Smouldering blue eyes bored into Jack, daring him to notice.

"The food is good," Jack commented casually.  "I may hold my retirement party here."

"What?"  It wasn't easy to snap bolt upright while wearing a seatbelt, but Daniel just about managed it.  "You're not serious?"

Jack just looked across at him.

"No!"

Jack's smile was a little twisted but it was real and it got away from him.  There were reasons he'd fallen in love with Daniel Jackson.  A ton of them.

"I won't let you!  No."

Stubbornness was high on Jack's very extensive list.

"My more or less abject failure as your team leader notwithstanding?" he suggested suavely, taking the final turn into the short avenue which looped around to the Kitchen.  He pulled into the almost empty parking lot, then undid his seatbelt, mechanically noting the fresh spring grass surrounding the restaurant was carpeted with bluebells.  It was so easy to lose track of the seasons, spending most of his time underground or under alien skies, the unfamiliar constellations beautiful but always unnerving, a vivid wrongness he'd never shaken off and doubted he ever would.  Little they encountered in the way of vegetation bothered him, not even purple trees, but the sky seemed to be his connection to home, his constant.

Like the man who belonged at his side.

"You didn't fail." Daniel sounded as if someone had stolen his voice.

"I lost my edge."  This much was clear to him after their little team-building session this morning.  His head must have been up his ass for even longer than he'd suspected.

"No," Daniel argued. "I trust you.  Don't you know that?" he snapped, glowering.  "We all trust you."

"It didn't sound like it," Jack countered dryly, thinking his problems with Carter alone were bigger than he ever imagined.

"I can't do this with anyone but you," Daniel insisted mulishly.  "I tried and I can’t.  I won't.  You're not going anywhere, so just deal with it!"

"Flattery will get you anything you damned well please," Jack hinted broadly.  "I'm terrified how mushy I could get with very little prompting," he sighed, wishing Daniel would turn off the wounded lamb look for a second, let him get his breath back. "Hopeless case, here."

"You're going to have to tell me why."  This came out as a very decided instruction, then Daniel got all shy and scooted nimbly out of the truck and Jack's reach, striding off towards the entrance to the restaurant.

Even though he totally got off on Daniel's rear view, Jack was going to have to nip this running away thing in the bud.

When he got inside, Daniel was already at a table next to the windows, well away from the few other couples gathered around the fire in the middle of the large, airy, white-washed room, watching the waitress jealously as she poured him coffee.  He had the pained, at bay look a man always wore when he was swamped by gingham, pastels and poodle perm chicks in dirndls.

"Don't let the décor fool you.  The food is good," Jack promised as he took his seat.  "We'll take two of everything," he informed the waitress, waiting politely while she poured coffee for him and strolled off to fill their order.

"Is this a Kountry Kitchen?" Daniel asked suspiciously, shuddering as he surveyed the establishment.

"Does that automatically make the food bad?"

Daniel's eyebrows rose.

"Okay," Jack acknowledged, his conscience pricking slightly.  Nothing good came in triple Ks.  It was kind of axiomatic.  "This is the exception."

The smiling waitress swept over to their table, her skirts swishing, deposited steaming bowls of creamy oatmeal in front of them and briskly left them to it.

Daniel scowled darkly after her.

"Scary," Jack remarked casually, wondering how pissed Daniel would get if he insisted the two of them were on their first date and how soon he would tell him this.

"Who has that kind of energy this early in the day?" Daniel complained.

"Carter."

Daniel blinked at this, decided against answering and investigated his oatmeal with something approaching enthusiasm.

Jack thought the oatmeal was very good, but he ate absently, his attention fixed on Daniel.  He looked fabulous, the vivid blue of the smart shirt, casually open to bare his long, slender throat, adding a glow to his skin and eyes.  It wasn't even weird to him anymore that he saw these things about Daniel.  He just enjoyed them.  "I wasn't kidding about retirement."

Daniel looked up through his lashes, his eyes flinty.  "Nor was I."

"That's nice," Jack acknowledged.

"No," Daniel denied categorically, "It isn't.  I need you."

Jack liked it took a beat for Daniel to add, in a stiff, palpable after-thought, that the team needed him.  "Even when all I left for you to do was propping up the wall?"

"You don't pick the missions," Daniel countered, aggravatingly reasonable.  He turned and waved his empty bowl peremptorily at the waitress, hovering attentively at the doorway to the kitchen.  Delicious meaty smells were wafting, to his evident appreciation.  Apparently, after the oatmeal, he was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt.

"I didn't do anything about them, either," Jack countered.  "Hammond isn’t unreasonable.  Nothing he's said about the future of the team needed to have come from him.  It should all have come from me.  If I'd been on top of my game it would have," he insisted.

They sat discreetly silent as the waitress delivered their breakfast platters, heaped with ham, scrambled eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms, fried potatoes and pancakes.  There were small silver dishes of maple syrup and rich berry compote, which Daniel heaped greedily on his pancakes.  They ate quietly while she bustled around filling coffee pots for the other diners, then fetched out warm biscuits, preserves and little cakes for them before retreating again to the kitchen.

"The missions were never about just Carter," Jack mused when everyone was settled again, safely out of earshot.  "SG-1 was the first contact team because of your expertise, not hers, but I don't recall that we ever left her on missions propping up some wall wondering what to do with herself.  You two complemented one another.  In fact, you had a blast, sometimes literally, and annoyed the crap out of me," he accused indulgently.  "There was plenty to challenge you both.  No one had to be content."  He spat this word out with some venom, still disturbed to hear Daniel describing himself in these terms.  There had been too much from Daniel recently which Jack had never expected to hear.  Jack intended that it stopped here.  He was tired of the misunderstandings and the distance between them.  He broke through all their barriers once and he would do it again.  "I don't know when we started pandering to her skills or why I didn’t notice we were doing exactly that."

"Don't you think you're overstating the case?" Daniel suggested, trying to be fair.

"No."

"Self-pity?" Daniel challenged, his eyes brightly questioning.

"Realism," Jack countered sharply.

"We do have standing orders," Daniel observed mildly.  "You reminded me quite forcefully of those one time."

"Well, I got to hold your hand out of it, so bite me!" Jack advised Daniel kindly, with a hint of a grin which in no way disguised that he didn't need to be told which mission this was.  Unfortunately, he knew it exactly.

"Isn't that the problem?" Daniel deceptively fixed an innocent gaze on Jack.  "The reason you lost your focus?  Too busy sublimating your sexuality and venting at the person you blamed for it?"

"Ouch," Jack winced.

Daniel's composure evaporated into uncertainty.  "I respect you a great deal," he mumbled stiffly, finding it difficult to meet Jack's eyes.

"You don't trust me, though.  Not the way you did."

"I know more than I used to," Daniel reflected.  "I don't mean that as a criticism, Jack, just that my judgement is more informed than it used to be.  My faith in you isn't as blind as it once was.  I guess I didn't realise you wanted an apology for that."

"You don't think much of me, do you?" Jack was saddened Daniel knew him so well, seeing straight through all his damnable little self-deceptions.  He pushed his plate away, abruptly losing his appetite.

"What is it you want me to say?" Daniel asked him tiredly.  "What is it you need to hear from me?  Or, even simpler, what is it you need to say?"

"The truth."

"Okay."  Daniel didn't attempt to prevaricate.  "The truth."

Jack braced himself.

"You've wanted me for a long time, something I didn't understand at the time, only that you couldn't have me far enough away from you for comfort," Daniel explained fluently.  "I didn't know you were hurting, I only knew that you were hurting me.  I didn't know you were struggling with your sexual identity, your sense of self, only that you were lashing out at me.  It felt to me as if our friendship were erased as if it had never been and in its place was - was Sam," he said stoically.  "It shouldn't have affected the team, but it did."  He shook his head vaguely, putting down his knife and fork to push his plate away from him, clasping his hands together, balanced on the edge of the table.  "You said this morning that it was like you stopped seeing me, meaning the team stopped."  He looked very directly at Jack.  "That isn't it and you know it.  You stopped and they followed your lead."

Was there any point denying this?  Jack didn't think so.  It was painful for him to hear because he felt Daniel was right.  He was also hearing what Daniel wasn't saying, that the distance between them had affected him too.  It wasn't just about the team for either of them.  Wasn't it always about the two of them first?

"Everything has changed now, Daniel."

"Because we made love?" Daniel asked unhappily.

"Because we connected again," Jack corrected him gently.  "I finally faced the truth and myself.  I wouldn't lie to you about that, Daniel."

"I know."

"I think I'll be better now," Jack said candidly, thinking aloud.  "I can't be without you, this much is obvious.  I guess I need you in order to be me."

"Jack?" Daniel sat up straight, startled by this pronouncement and unsure how he was supposed to react.

"I've had the best training," Jack responded absently.  "The best dehumanisation Uncle Sam's money can buy.  It's supposed to be stronger than anything, supposed to make me able to withstand anything.  It's sure as shit stronger than me, you've seen the heartless asshole I was trained to be often enough." He watched Daniel broodingly.  "Not stronger than you, though.  I don't understand what you say sometimes, I don't always agree, but I understand you, I understand why, and I listen even when I shouldn't and I don't want to.  I don't know how or when or why I gave you so much power over me, but you have it.  It's done."

"You're suggesting if we're together, you'll be different?  Better?" Daniel suggested hesitantly, looking as if he were bracing himself for a blow.  "Consequently, the team will be better?"

"Spit it out."

"Together as friends or - or lovers?"

"Both."

Before Jack could say more, they were disturbed by the arrival of several more couples, one of them choosing to sit uncomfortably close.  It was impossible to talk without constraint about any of this, let alone risk being overheard.  When Daniel nodded his understanding, Jack flagged down the waitress and she was happy to bag their biscuits, cakes and a pot of preserves, and pour them fresh coffee to go.  Daniel paid and they left together with as little fuss or notice as they'd entered.

Jack said nothing, leaving Daniel to his thoughts until he was stowed in the truck with the goodies on his lap.  It was good they could read each other, that they knew when to give a little space and when it was safe to talk.  Things like this made a difference.

"I want to make love with you.  I love your passion, Daniel, and I need it.  The need isn't going to end and I'm not going to change," Jack said simply as he was starting up the engine.

"If I can't?"

"You can.  You did," Jack reminded him serenely as he pulled away.  "Remember how good we were together, Daniel," he urged.  "You wanted me as much as I wanted you."

"I've never made love with anyone I wasn't committed to," Daniel confessed in a stifled voice.

"You don't need to tell me that," Jack promised tenderly.  "I know you're trying to figure out ways you can make this work, not ways to dump me as kindly and painlessly as possible."  He heard clearly Daniel's soft, stuttering intake of breath.

"You know a lot."

"I know you."  Jack spared Daniel a swift glance as he turned onto the highway.  "Quit your worrying," he ordered roughly.  "You have all the time you need.  I won’t be a bastard just because you won't sleep with me right now.  Just don't shut me out, okay?  Talk to me."

"Don't call me baby.  Even when I'm upset enough to maybe look as if I need it," Daniel said dangerously, "I dislike it."

Jack meekly apologised for his terrible lapse in taste and judgement.

"You were right," Daniel admitted, his voice low and difficult and his face beginning to burn.  "I don't have a lot of experience."

"Don't worry about it," Jack advised him warmly.

"I don't," Daniel said coldly.

"That's good," Jack commented in a hearty-ish problem-solved voice.

"It was - we were," Daniel said pathetically, then couldn't go on.

"Would it be considered insensitive of me to note at this time that I'm as aware as you of your insatiable curiosity?"  Daniel's scorching glare suggested it was.  Extremely.  Jack beamed at him.  "I guarantee it will be even more intense between us next time we make love."

Refusing to be beguiled, no matter how puppyish Jack's eyes got, Daniel watched him warily, like he might bite.

"I know how you need to be touched."  Jack duly bit with relish, very satisfied with the answering tide of colour on Daniel's face and his suddenly wide, defenceless eyes.

In a vain attempt to hide his discomfiture, Daniel hastily turned to stare out of the window.

Letting Daniel be for now, Jack concentrated on his driving and the twists and turns of the Cheyenne Mountain Highway.  It was all the privacy he could give, cooped up this way.  There were so many damned people working out at the base, the highway had its own rush hour.  Glad it was a short drive, Jack kept one eye on the road and one eye on Daniel, sitting silent, staring out the window, content to wait him out.

"I feel I'm in an impossible situation," Daniel said finally as they joined the line of traffic filtering through the checkpoint at the entrance to the base.  "Having to decide whether I'm able to commit to a deeper personal relationship with you, a sexual relationship, when whatever decision I make will affect not just our personal but our professional lives, and not just ours, but Sam's and Teal'c's too."

"I'm still not," Jack began.

"Let me finish," Daniel sternly silenced him.  "This was not a decision I ever expected to have to make and sex with you was not a fantasy.  Now it isn't even an abstract, it's a reality."

"An intensely pleasurable one," Jack remarked, not particularly boasting.  "Some of which was us, our feelings, some of it physiology.  The guy on guy thing," he added vaguely as they coasted up to the guard to show their IDs.

"I have some research to do," Daniel said briskly, reviving a little at the thought.  "While you have some thinking to do."  This was apparently not negotiable.  "I want to know why you fell for me.  What is it, exactly, which attracted you to me?"

"I already said!" Jack complained as he swept past the minions who were slogging up from the farthest points of the parking lot towards the mountain.  Rank had its privileges, including convenient parking.  "Well, part of it.  If we're talking attraction, not the mushy feelings stuff, you're going to have to lift the embargo on me discussing your exciting physical attributes with you."  Cunning was on his job description, in so many words.  He was good at cunning.  Better than, random example here, Dr. Daniel Jackson.

Daniel conceded the validity of Jack's point with a haughty sniff and a haughtier look which failed to disguise the fact he was blenching and completely embarrassed at the mere thought.

"What attracted me to you?"  Let me count the ways, Jack thought.  "I told you already that I love your passion.  I see how lost you get, how what you love consumes you, the way you look and touch, how completely you give yourself.  I want your passion for me."

"I, um, I understand."  Daniel pushed his tongue against his cheek, a cute habit he had when Jack had just disconcerted him with something so far out of left field he still didn't know where it had come from.  "I think," he mumbled, incurably honest.

"I knew you'd be absolutely amazing in bed," Jack informed him solemnly just as they arrived at the SGC's outer security checkpoint.  They went through the whole ID rigmarole again and Jack drove into the mountain and parked while Daniel sat glassy-eyed and speechless.  Jack had the distinct impression no one in the whole of Daniel's life had ever said anything like this to him before.  He felt a distraction was definitely called for.  "If it wasn't for the fact I think my ass should be put out to grass, I'd be enjoying you immensely," he murmured provocatively.

Right on cue, Daniel's brows snapped together.  "Didn't we already discuss this?" he demanded as he slid out of the truck and slammed the door.  "You're not retiring."  He marched away, his back rigid with indignation.

"I could transfer to another team."

"Unacceptable!  A ridiculously self-pitying overreaction.  All you need to do is listen to me!" Daniel fired at Jack as he flashed his ID at the guard waiting for them at the final checkpoint, then he stalked over to call the elevator.  "You used to hear me just fine," he snapped as Jack joined him.

"I'm letting my cynicism show," Jack shrugged.

"Don't you think that's as much a consequence of the kinds of missions we've been undertaking as anything else we've been talking about this morning?" Daniel tossed over his shoulder as he strode into the elevator car.

There were about half-a-dozen SFs headed their way, calling out to hold the elevator for them.  Jack obligingly made room for them as it meant huddling up against Daniel in the corner.

"We're full," Daniel said curtly as the doors closed in their surprised faces.

"By the time we get to the gear-up room, it'll be all over base that I'm giving you hell again and it's so bad, you didn’t want anyone else to hear it," Jack sighed resignedly.

Daniel seemed to find this amusing but he sobered immediately.  "I'm serious, Jack," he said earnestly.  "Transferring off the team should be the last thing you do.  Our allies have failed to deliver, there's nothing they can or will do for us when we need them."

It was so like Daniel to have picked up on this when he should have been more concerned with his own problems.  Jack was grateful for his consideration, but contented himself with nudging Daniel's shoulder in acknowledgement, very aware of the security camera on them, severely curtailing a variety of pleasurable activities, such as pinning Daniel in the corner and kissing him until he kissed back.

"I can respect how frustrating that is for you.  The very nature of an alliance demands commonality and mutual adhesion to the agreed terms."

"In English please!"

"We each have to put out."

Jack hid a smile with difficulty.  He appeared to have focused Daniel's mind wonderfully.

"I know I don't think in those terms," Daniel went on.

"Putting out?"

"Militaristically!"

"Sorry."

"You are not," Daniel contradicted resentfully.  "I'm trying to explain to you that despite my occasional impatience, I understand where you’re coming from.  You're trained to achieve an objective, to fulfil your orders to the best of your ability.  I do pay attention, Jack.  Our standing orders encapsulate the military mindset, my interpretation of which is that our victories are dependent on having superior technology.  The only people capable of fighting us on our terms are close allies on whom we can depend.  This has been the basis of your career  for over twenty years."

"You pay attention?" Jack parroted insouciantly, trying to cover for how taken aback he was by this.  He wasn't comfortable that Daniel could cut right through his bull to the heart of him.

"I do." Daniel leaned in confidentially.  "This is your whole history, Jack, your belief system.  Only, everything has changed.  For the first time, we're the ones with the inferior technology and we're looking to our allies for support which is not forthcoming.  Even worse, our allies are, to be crude, fucking us over."

"You pay too much attention," Jack snapped, maybe more sharply than he intended.

"You carry too much weight," Daniel retorted fiercely, looking like he wanted to smack some sense into Jack.  "The weight of the world and the fate of billions and you have these constant reminders of how outclassed and alone we really are.  Of course, we haven't even begun to address the issue of me," he added in a small voice as the elevator doors opened.

"You?"  It was Jack's turn to be wary.

"I want to save everyone," Daniel confessed, rueful in his defiance as he led the way to the gear-up room.  "I know when you listen to me you're a less effective soldier by the standard Hammond holds you to and to which you hold yourself.  You were right," he said softly, trying to smile and show this was okay when it wasn't, not to him.  "You don't agree with most of what I say and I don't say anything you want or maybe even should hear.  I'm as aware as anyone how often I piss you off."

Daniel didn't appear to be aware how often Jack let him down, though.  He didn't appear to know this at all.  Jack knew.  It had screwed him six ways from Sunday every time it all got too much for him and he'd been a breath away from spilling his guts to Daniel because he just couldn't take anymore.  He always had to take more, did not seem to have any choice in this.

"Do you think maybe you're picking your battles, Jack?  That you lost your edge, as you insist, because you're tired?" Daniel was nervous, turning to hover defensively by his locker as if waiting for an explosion of some kind.  "If you take on more of those same kinds of missions, won't you just be feeding your cynicism?"

"You want to save me too?"  Jack sat heavily on the nearest bench, more upset than he cared to show.

"This isn't helping, is it?" Daniel recognised sadly, sagging against the shelves of his locker, his arms reaching around himself automatically.

"You're not wrong," Jack reassured quickly, hating how small he sounded.  He was never supposed to show his uncertainty.  He had to have confidence in himself before others could.  It was a fundamental.  It was just - Jesus, he hated Daniel seeing him so clearly.  "You're a good man," he mumbled mostly to himself.  Too good for him.  He'd compromised too much of himself to too little purpose.  He'd done some damned distasteful things, not all of them before Daniel had known him, and he would do them again if he had to.  When it wasn't possible for Jack to accept this in himself, when he had to forget about it, his familiar, his only defence mechanism, how could Daniel accept it?  How could Jack ask it of him?  Daniel's morality was an absolute, the consequences of his failures devastating to him.  Jack's morals were of necessity situationally flexible and it was no comfort to him how well he'd adjusted through his 'whole history' to that.  He took a licking, buried it and kept right on ticking.

He felt an uncertain weight on his shoulder and looked up in surprise, touched to find Daniel's hand there.

"You're a good man, too, Jack, and I need you.  It's what we can do together which makes the difference, I think," Daniel suggested diffidently.

Jack had kept his feelings locked down for too long, the distance between them as much to keep him safe as Daniel.  He had a job to do and knew he would most likely break Daniel's heart doing it.  He hadn't wanted to be close enough to see what he was doing to Daniel and had been unable to see that his indifference was worse.  Self-loathing and self-absorption were a poisonous mix, to more than just himself.  He didn't like to see Daniel this way, anything but sure of him.  What had happened to the Daniel who had blithely ordered Jack to do his bidding, who coaxed, beguiled, argued and insisted with the absolute confidence of a child?  That was how sure of him Daniel was once, but not any longer.

Yet, he'd thought all of this through, let all of this go on Mirin.  A death sentence was a contradiction, a terrible freedom from consequence and the ultimate consequence at once.  He had to face facts, here.  Keep it clear and simple.  Retirement was just another avoidance, wasn't it?  He owed it to them both to work through this, to allow Daniel in.  It wasn't only Daniel who'd trusted.

"Go easy on yourself, Jack," Daniel advised him compassionately, his voice thick with empathy.  "You didn't expect to have to live with all of this either.  You didn't expect to have to live with me," he added ironically.

"You're my priority."  Jack was a better man with Daniel.  He found his humanity, as difficult and inconvenient as it could be.  After being trained his whole life not to question, he met Daniel and he'd done nothing but question ever since.  "I don't know which costs more, my way, or yours."

"We balance," Daniel said softly, certainly.  "We're different but we each need those differences.  We, um, we - we need each other."

"Mushy feelings stuff?" Jack taunted, smiling a little.

"If you like."

"I like."

Suddenly conscious of their proximity, Daniel took his hand away.

Jack had better reflexes.  He caught hold of Daniel's wrist.  "So you think signing up for those art appreciation gigs will put me back on the right track?"

"I think only you can do that," Daniel answered more seriously than Jack had intended.  "It's a cliché, I know, but if you can just open yourself up again, Jack," he urged.

Daniel's confidence in him was seductive, as intoxicating as his nearness, Jack easing his grip to an impulsive caress, stroking his thumb in fascination over and over the tender, blue-veined skin at Daniel's inner wrist.  He was pleased Daniel didn't pull away from him, didn't even try, just stood there looking down at him, his breath quickening.

"I'm open."

"Not to me, Jack.  To yourself."

"I need you for that.  You make me feel what I don't want to feel and then it isn't enough."

"I'm sorry."  Daniel wasn't sure that he was.

"Don't be.  Just be with me."

Jack stood up, still holding on to Daniel's wrist.  Just a few moments more of soft, reassuring pressure, then he smiled and strolled over to his locker, shrugging out of his leather jacket. "Wear the blue," he tossed over his shoulder as he hung up his jacket.

"Why?" Daniel asked suspiciously.

Jack's swift, comprehensive once-over was filled with quiet, appreciative amusement, inviting Daniel to share.  "You look good enough to eat in blue," he answered blandly.

Daniel looked down involuntarily at his shirt.  Then he pointedly turned his back on Jack and his sense of humour.  He was slower than usual undressing but made it out of his jacket and shirt before he had to vocalise his daunting awareness of Jack.

"We do this every day.  I've grown accustomed to this.  It's routine," he said, uncertain that he was explaining anything at all.

"Not any more," Jack chuckled darkly, emerging from his sweatshirt.  "I want to jump your bones and you know it."

"Thank you for that," Daniel retorted witheringly.  "Yes."

"We can talk about it if you like," Jack offered generously, his tone honeyed.  He was stripping obliviously, completely comfortable in his own skin.

Daniel had always envied him this confidence.

"Talk?"

"About sex."

"Oh."  It was time for Daniel to get out of his pants.  He didn't want Jack thinking he had a problem, that he was panicking about Jack wanting to get into his pants or anything.  "Um, I think we should."  He was poised for Jack to fire something outrageous at him then go through his almost ritual once-more-in-English obfuscation routine to squirm right back off the hook of his own making.  Daniel turned in surprise when he was greeted by silence.

Jack was naked, holding his BDU pants forgotten in his hands, his challenging, predatory gaze prowling over Daniel's skin, a wanting, hungry look, screaming sex.

"Talk, I mean.  Soon," Daniel added, glad his voice came out fairly steady.  "I have no idea what I'd do if you just walked over here."  He shook his head dazedly, so exhausted he felt unreal.  "No idea at all."

Jack's smile was rich, lighting his eyes.  "That's why I'm all the way over here, Daniel."

This would all be so much easier if Daniel couldn't remember how heavy Jack was, how he smelled and tasted, the power and grace of his body, the heat and feel of him, moving inside.  They had no choice but to resolve what was between them because Daniel wasn't ever going to lose the memory.  Neither of them would.

The silence was heavy with vivid mutual memory.

Daniel took a deep breath and stripped the way he had when he first joined SG-1 and found himself having to acclimate once more to claustrophobic, communal locker-room living.  He detached and focused on completion of each individual task, never thinking about the whole, about the context.

He did well until he was pulling on his jacket, when a difficult thought intruded.

"What are the odds of you not hanging out in my office all day?" he asked edgily.

"Zero," Jack retorted pleasantly, ambling over to hover solicitously.  "I figure it'll take all day just to talk you into having dinner with me tonight."

"Dinner?"  Oh, boy.  This was a fairly alarming development.

"I figured you wouldn't want to be alone while you were writing up your report on the Mirin mission.  Or after," Jack said sweetly.

"I don't need you to hold my hand," Daniel insisted sullenly.

"Translation: I'm not leaving you alone while you're writing up your report.  And I like holding you."

"You're not planning to leave me alone full-stop," Daniel snapped, aggravated, trying hard to ignore Jack's distinctly provocative look.

"I'm the itch that can definitely be scratched," Jack promised faithfully.

Daniel sighed.

"I know I owe you some answers, but I figure you owe me too," Jack announced thoughtfully, deciding this was as good a time as any to prove to Daniel how much he liked holding him.

"I do?" Daniel answered distractedly, trying to make sense of how he felt about this.  It wasn't as if Jack had never held him before.  They'd hugged a time or two over the years.  Jack's arms were wrapped around his waist though, hands comfortably clasped in the small of Daniel's back.  Very close.  Jack was very close to him.

"I have some questions," Jack murmured, staring contentedly at Daniel's face.

Well.  Jack couldn't be more here and Daniel was right, he didn't know what he would do.

"Do you remember how we were together, Daniel?  Do you remember how close we came when we were making love?  How close we stayed, after?"  Jack was honeyed again, coaxing him.  "How happy you were?"

It was hard to find this truth again in all his confusion but Daniel found he couldn't deny it.  For that short time he had with Jack before the Mirin came for them, he knew no doubt or hesitation.  He had been sure of Jack then, and happy in his certainty.

"Don't you want more?"

"You mean don't I want you?" Daniel asked unsteadily, finding himself unable to look away from Jack's mouth.

"Us."  Jack was still staring at him as if he liked nothing better, smiling, inviting.  "You're right.  It's the two of us together, that's what makes the difference."

"Dinner?"  It was as much of a response as Daniel was capable of.

"Please."

"What will happen if you do kiss me again?"  He didn't know and he found he really needed to.  It was the feeling he had for Jack, and more than that, for himself, the person he was when Jack was open to him.  There were so few times in his life when he hadn't been alone, when he'd been centred in himself and his emotions, not his intellect.  "You changed me," he whispered.  "You changed everything."

"I know."  It seemed Jack did.

Daniel had never seen him this way, serious yet at the same time warm, no bull, no attitude, nothing to jar their tentative, deepening connection.

"If we kiss, I imagine I'll take you to bed and we'll make love for a very long time."  It was a promise, not speculation.  "Maybe we'll find out tonight."

Daniel wanted to say it was too soon, too much, but he didn't know if he felt it was.  He didn't know anything.

He was remembering.


	6. Part Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slash: Jack and Daniel involved in a loving and committed relationship, which usually involves sex.  
> Rating: NC-17  
> Category: Angst. Drama. First Time. Friendship. Hurt/Comfort.  
> Season/Spoilers: Season 5. Spoilers for Seasons 1-5. Politics. Need. Legacy. Shades of Grey. Divide & Conquer. Failsafe. Menace. The Sentinel.  
> Synopsis: When Daniel's belief in himself and his place in the team are shaken to the core, can Jack help him find his true voice again?  
> Warnings: Angst and ambiguity make this quite dark in tone.

Daniel liked having Jack around.  He always had.  They were friends.  The best of friends, in fact.  Maybe one or other or both of them would always be arguing black was white, but still they liked each other.  A lot.  They had to, for them to put in as much effort as they did.

Sam dropped by now and again to bounce ideas off Daniel and feed him chocolate.  Teal'c spent time in his office too, his benign presence one of oddly soothing stillness.  Planted in a chair right next to Daniel's desk, quietly enjoying his National Geographic, Jack filled the room.

It could be the gentle hand rubbing circles in the small of Daniel's back.  Or it could just be Jack.

"I've been looking forward to working on this translation for months," Daniel sighed, reluctantly pushing his still painfully neat folder of digital images away.

"Yeah?"  This was quite encouraging as absent-minded Jackian grunts went.

"I can't concentrate."  Daniel scooped a comforting pile of books towards him and leaned forward, balancing his fists on the books and his chin on his fists.  He loved the smell of books, especially old, loved, well-thumbed books.  He sat quietly, his eyes closed, not thinking about anything much in particular, tiredly drifting while Jack read and reassured with constant affectionate touches which Daniel was beginning to relax into nicely.

"Remember when you were in Mental Health?" Jack murmured, carefully turning a crisp, glossy page.  "You called for me."

"Mmmph."  Daniel's grunt was less encouraging.  He didn't want to remember, he didn't want to think.  He didn't want anything.  Just this.

"Teal'c was dying but I came right over anyway."

Except, maybe, this was serious and Jack so rarely was.  Daniel turned his face towards Jack, his resistance melting away.  If Jack really wanted to talk, of course he was here for him.

"I'm not good at that stuff."  Jack grinned, glancing up fleetingly.  "Not good at this stuff either," he snorted and then his face went intense.  "You needed me."

"I was alone.  I did it myself.  I thought my way clear," Daniel murmured, his thoughts and tone slow and slurring.  "No one believed me."

"I believe in you."

"When?"

Jack looked up to find nothing but bewilderment in Daniel's receptive face, realising immediately he wasn't arguing, he just couldn't quite take in what Jack was saying to him.

"The thing with Maybourne."

"Which one?" Daniel asked reasonably, frowning.

Jack was slightly distracted by Daniel's wrinkling brow and drowsy eyes.  He was cute when he was punchy.  "We went off-world with some of his merry men a month or so back."  A puzzled pout added significantly to the overall adorability quotient.  "Which end do the bullets go in again?" he prompted.  This amusing interlude also failed to compute.  "The drawing straws thing."

"Oh.  That."  Daniel sat up a bit, propping his cheek against his hand.

It was a real conversational handicap for Jack, Daniel being so damned handsome.  His hair was longer than it had been for a few years, rumpled, curling up at his right temple, falling over to the left where it feathered out to curl up above his ear.  No way Jack was letting him cut it, not when it was perfect.  As far as Jack was concerned, Daniel couldn't be any more perfect.  He was drop-dead gorgeous and all guy and Jack was a lucky bastard and boy, did he know it.

"We never really got past that, did we?" Daniel said softly, stunning Jack.

"Never talked about it." Jack wondered if Daniel realised what he'd just admitted.  They'd never been able to discuss what had happened between them at his house when he laid the bait to trap Maybourne.  Some things were just too hard to say.  Jack had tried to talk, just once, too soon.  He should have known it was too soon and too public, coming off as more about making him feel better than Daniel.  He could understand why Daniel had brushed him off and walked away, refusing to admit he'd been hurt.  There never was a time for them to talk after that.  Jack had tried to be nice for a mission or two, to make it up to him, but in the end Daniel wasn't the only one who'd pulled away.  Jack had hurt him and what was it but a dry run for most of the next two years?

It was so ironic this was the time Jack first realised he and Daniel were too close, that they mattered far too much to each other.  He hadn’t thought it possible he could miss Daniel when the man was right there every day.  Not with him, though, and over time, not wholly with the team.  Jack had to take responsibility for that.  Carter and Teal'c had followed his lead.  He'd missed Daniel, he'd hated the barriers between them, and he'd pushed the why from him, venting instead over the what.  It was shitty but Jack could be.  He'd never known he possessed the power to hurt Daniel as much as he had, instinct panicking him into pushing him away.  He'd intended it to be safer than the intense, consuming exclusivity of their friendship but all he'd managed to do was hurt and isolate Daniel.

He also fell in love.

"I didn't want to talk, Jack.  What was the point?  You used me but it was because you felt you had to.  It was difficult for you, I don't doubt that, and to you it was necessary to act in the way you did.  To exclude us."

Daniel's dreamy, murmuring sorrow got to Jack in a way anger wouldn't have.  He didn't feel a need to defend himself, Daniel wasn't pushing him for that even though he could.  Jack felt only the need to explain, to help Daniel understand as much as he could.

"Remember what I said to Makepeace?  There in the gateroom at the end of it all?"

"I remember everything."

"I said to Makepeace that we didn't need their stuff but we did need them," Jack went on anyway.  "Our allies, I mean.  Which was just about the opposite of everything we've been talking about the past few hours."

"The opposite of your whole belief system?"  Daniel was struggling with this unexpected new insight, uncertain how to respond, but obviously willing to hear anything Jack was ready to tell him.

"My whole history."  Jack smiled wryly as he quoted this, grateful again for Daniel's bone-deep generosity.  "I got that from you.  You made me find the humanity in that situation despite everything I've trained for and believe in, despite how little I wanted it.  It's always about the technology, the tangible tactical advantage.  It's supposed to be.  Hammond and the rest of us, we plan, we assess, we respond.  We don't," he hesitated, searching for a word which fit his meaning, "hope."  This was the best he could do.

Did Daniel appreciate the magnitude of his admission?  He was a bright, sensitive man and he cared more for Jack than for himself.  For everyone, really.  Jack trusted Daniel would get what couldn't be said, what was too hard for him.

"I manipulated you just like our allies manipulated me, but you're right.  I had no choice any more than Maybourne and Makepeace felt they had a choice.  There was no wrong and no right, Daniel, no black or white.  Just shades of grey."

"You put your whole belief system on the line, you compromised your integrity and your team, trusting that the Asgard, the Nox, the Tollan - that all our allies were worth the sacrifice." Daniel sat up straight, a deep line furrowing between his eyes.  "That was the truth only in principle, though, wasn't it?  In practice, they weren't worth it, were they?  Not to you.  You gave up part of yourself for them and they can't or they won't give much of anything in return.  Only if it doesn't cost them."

Daniel turned in his chair, leaning towards Jack, hands hugging his knees, his eyes strained and questioning.  "Is this what's been bothering you?" he asked straight-forwardly.  "Why you seem to have hardened so much and find it so difficult to trust me?  Because what I made you - what you say I made you," he amended scrupulously, having difficulty accepting this assertion, "believe in is wrong?  Wrong for you?"

"I don't know.  Not consciously," Jack offered, refusing to dodge this particular bullet.  "But maybe.  This past year or so, it's been the law of diminishing returns for us.  More and more time, effort and pain, for less and less return."

"Do you think the problem here is not what you feel so much as it's that I can, apparently, make you feel it?" Daniel suggested diffidently, ambushed by his customary modesty.  "I - you think I - I mean too much to you?"  It was very much a question, an invitation for Jack to rebut.  Perhaps even an expectation.  Daniel was rigid, braced, looking nervously down at his tightly gripping hands.

"You mean everything."  There would be a day Jack could say this and see Daniel believe him.  He didn't know how long it would take them to get to that place in their relationship, but it would happen.  He was determined.

"This is why you were talking earlier about not knowing whose way is harder, mine or yours," Daniel recognised, looking up at this.  "Are these misunderstandings my fault?  Are my expectations of you too high?" he asked, bewildered.  "I thought I was more realistic, that I understood better what you can and can't do.  I know it isn't a matter of won't."  He sighed, pulling a face.  "Mostly I know."

"I hate to let you down, Daniel.  I can't stand your disappointment." Jack hitched his chair closer, knee to knee close.  "It isn't you.  It's me," he said as reassuringly as possible.  "I wish I were the man you think I am, but I'm not.  Not even close.  I could do it for a while, I could put on a good show, but I guess at the core I need something back."

"Altruism is noble but there are other feelings, other drives which are just as human," Daniel argued, upset.  He didn't know what to say this.  What it was Jack needed and wanted to hear.  "I don't want you to be anything but who and what you are.  It's enough for me.  I'm not trying to change you.  At least, I didn't think I was."  Not consciously.  His faith in Jack couldn't shape the man he was.  Could it?  Could he have that much influence, could he mean so much to another human being?

"But you do.  You did.  It isn't wrong, Daniel, I'm not saying that.  It's just hard, okay?" Jack explained, surprisingly patient.

Daniel couldn't remember the last time they'd talked without him cutting it off, feeling he was intrusive.  Jack never said he didn't want him, but the aridity of their conversations didn't invite Daniel to confide.  He was made to feel a colleague, not a friend.  The difference was probably indistinguishable to Sam and Teal'c, but not to Daniel.  He found he was occupying the same kind of space for Jack as Kawalsky and the other men he'd served with, to whom Jack got close, but not too close, and could walk away from at the end of a mission.  It shook him to know their distance, their frequent clashes, were manufactured.  He'd questioned so much about himself.  Jack couldn't have meant for that to happen.  He couldn't have known he was undermining Daniel's confidence.

"Overturning everything you believe about yourself and everything important to you?" Daniel reiterated, unable to believe he could have been having such an impact on Jack without ever knowing it.

"Those are changes I maybe know I need or I wouldn't make them.  You know me way too well to buy the altruism crap.  I always have a point."

Daniel was beginning to realise just how much thinking Jack had done on Mirin and how hard he'd been on himself.  He was very moved by Jack's honesty, wanting for Jack to feel it was worthwhile, even the feelings he couldn't share.  "They're not changes you want, though, so where does that leave us, Jack?"

"Here."

Daniel found he was shaking his head, pushing his chair away impulsively to jump up and pace off some of his agitation.  This was the heart of the matter.  He still couldn't make the leap of faith Jack was asking of him.  It was too soon.  There were still questions, still answers to come he knew he wouldn't be happy to hear any more than Jack would be willing to give.  He was willing to take the risk, they both were, but it had to be at a pace which didn't overwhelm.

"I'm serious, Daniel," Jack insisted.  "We're right here.  I had nothing but time on Mirin, time to think, get my head straight.  Time with you.  I'm okay."

Daniel stopped then, turning to park his butt on the corner of his workbench, his generous mouth curving.  Not quite a smile, but close.  "That's it.  The difference I see."

"What is?" Jack wasn't following.

"You're not angry.  Not about Mirin."

"I am!" Jack denied vigorously.

"No, it's not the same.  You're with me," Daniel suggested shyly.  The vicious, biting edge he'd grown used to was absent.  Jack was focused on him in a way he hadn't been in a long time.  Daniel had never been able to stop himself from missing Jack's attentiveness and exuberant affection.  He'd missed Jack filling his life and trying to run it, missed having his good opinion and his reliance, withdrawn from Daniel in so many ways, not all of them subtle.

"I've been with you for years," Jack mumbled.  "I just stopped fighting it."

"I'm glad," Daniel said slowly.  "We do better together.  Perhaps we are opposites but for me, our strength has always been in finding common ground.  We used to complement, not conflict."  Everything had suffered.  Their friendship, the team, themselves.  "I find it hard to take in, that this was all about sex for you.  That wanting a relationship with me could make you feel so threatened."

Jack winced, but didn’t attempt to deny it.  "To be fair, I don't think this was ever where either of us expected or intended our lives to be."

"No."  Daniel had to go along with this.  He was used to suppressing his body's needs.  He jerked off when he had to, taking the time to enjoy himself when he took the time at all.  If.  There were so many other demands, so many pleasures.  He never thought consciously that he was sublimating his passion into his researches, only that they were for him the most important thing.  His books, his studies took him out of himself completely.  He lost who he was and, it was a cliché, but true nevertheless: his mind soared.  He was free.

"I was never going to be ready for this," Daniel acknowledged ironically.  One more thing Jack was right about.  It wasn't only that Daniel had never been with a man, but that he'd never been with or even imagined anyone as disciplined, experienced, as good in bed as Jack.  It was the best sex of his life, the most intimate, the most intense, the most focused on him and his pleasure.  With Sarah and Sha'uri, his only lovers before Jack, he was used to giving, this was what felt right to him.  Jack, though?  Jack had seduced him into - into accepting.  All Jack had wanted was for Daniel to be with him.

It was kind of disturbing to have his understanding of sex and of his oblivious, unquestioning sexuality so comprehensively overturned.  Daniel was struggling to come to terms with this new self-knowledge and it didn't help that he was a little intimidated by Jack.  It had been easy to ignore his gaucheness and inexperience while Jack was making love to him, he had felt so much for Jack and been given so much pleasure.  Now, though, he was finding it difficult to remember anything else.  He wasn't a very good lay, was he?  He didn't do much but hold Jack and kiss him.

Frankly, Daniel felt kind of inadequate.

"We can't discuss this here," Jack said abruptly, looking edgy as two SFs strolled past, laughing and joking, their volume startling Daniel to his feet.  "If you close your doors, you'll have half the base trooping in here to find out what I've done to you, with Teal'c leading the charge.  Let's go to my place.  Talk some more."

"Your office?"

"Yeah.  Why?"  Jack jumped up energetically, hooked Daniel around the elbow and drew him, slightly resistant, out the door.

"Your office?"

"Get over it!" Jack snorted, amused.  He never let anyone in his office if he could avoid it, and over time the rumours about what he had and what he did in there had multiplied.  He enjoyed the fact his office had attained the status of an urban myth around the SGC.

"You never spend time in your office, Jack.  You just roam around the base, happening to other people and their offices.  Mine in particular."

"You're my best friend!" Jack smirked, quite pleased by this somewhat embittered tribute to his powers of annoyance, aggravation and everyday mayhem.  "Something of the office survives," he paraphrased happily.

Rolling his eyes with pantomime emphasis, Daniel groaned, slumping pathetically as Jack inserted him into the elevator.  While Jack was making the most of this manhandling, what the security camera made of it was anyone's guess.  Daniel was tempted to ham it up, give the watching SFs a thrill but he gave it up in favour of a quiet think while Jack was more or less constrained to behave.

Daniel was having some strange thoughts.  Questions.  It was a natural reaction, he supposed, to think again about some of their missions, the things Jack had said and done to him.  Even on the mission Jack had thrown in Sam's face today, there were moments Daniel had failed to read.  Stranded on the asteroid and out of time, Jack had taken his hand, patted him in reassurance.  Commiseration.   Simple fellow-feeling.  Something easy, anyway.  Or so Daniel had thought.  It had never occurred to him that Jack liked touching him and looked for excuses to do so.

They got off the elevator on twenty-five and ambled past the VIP guest quarters into the rabbit warren of hallways which housed the SGC's officers and team leaders.  Daniel had about four times the office space Jack had, but Jack had more than everyone else.  He pulled rank without shame or hesitation.  It wasn't so much comfort which concerned Jack as competitiveness.

"You like to win, don't you?  You need to win."

"It's what I'm trained for," Jack acknowledged equably, pulling up in front of his office and opening the door for Daniel with grandiloquent courtesy.

"You also like to have all my attention," Daniel said crisply, thinking again about the unprovoked holding of hands  "Were you trained for that too?"  He immediately pulled a face at his tactlessness, slipping sulkily into the uninvitingly utilitarian chair Jack had sitting in front of his standard Air Force issue desk.  "In any other culture, with any other person, I would have questioned this," Daniel insisted, slightly accusingly.  He was pretty sure he would've noticed if people were flirting with him and making passes at him the whole time!

"Yeah, but I'm subtle," Jack claimed outrageously, astonishingly managing to stay straight-faced.  He sat cheerfully on the corner of his desk instead of behind it, which kept him nice and close to Daniel and allowed him to loom menacingly if required.

"Which is just another way of saying I'm clueless!" Daniel snapped, not missing Jack's point.

"Ah, you like me.  A lot," Jack said excusingly, fondly patting Daniel's shoulder.  "So?" he invited.  "What had you all blushing and breathless back there?"

Daniel would rather die than tell Jack O'Neill he was good in bed.  Not that Jack needed to hear it anyway.  He couldn't be that good and not know it.

"Ah!" Jack hooted, reading Daniel like the proverbial book and brightening visibly.  "The two-backed b-"

Daniel hastily smacked his hand over Jack's mouth.  "Don't," he pleaded.  He could not take jokes.

Jack kissed Daniel's palm without a hint of apology for his crassness, then wouldn't let go of his hand.

Remembering how much attention Jack had paid to his ineffectual attempts to free himself when they did this same dance in the gear-up room earlier, Daniel surrendered irritably, feeling stupid.  "I hope you're not going to make a habit of this kind of thing!"

"Well, I figure trying to get you to sit on my lap is probably pushing my luck this early in our relationship," Jack responded with superb dignity.

"I'm six feet tall," Daniel protested incredulously, utterly unable to visualise such a thing.  "I weigh a ton!"

Jack was singularly unreceptive to this seemingly irrelevant objection.

"Your knees hurt!"

"Not when I'm in bed with you," Jack murmured dulcetly, his dark eyes glinting.  "No raining on one of my favourite parades," he ordered, grinning.

Daniel stubbornly refused to let himself be embarrassed at this blatant suggestiveness, raising his chin defiantly.  Just because he felt inadequate didn't mean he had to show it.

"I imagine the two of us in the centre of my bed," Jack said dreamily, "your legs wrapped around me, my arms around you.  You're kissing me, your hands everywhere, watching me as I'm watching you move on me."

"You imagine a lot?"  Daniel intended this as a statement, but the way his voice climbed, it came out as a question.  A feeble one.

"Oh, yeah," Jack promised softly.

"I see."

Jack patted him fondly again and kindly advised him not to worry himself about it.

Worried?  Daniel was not worried.  He had to ask about these things simply because he needed to understand Jack's intense physicality.  What it was about him which evoked this deep, focused sexual response in his friend.  It was natural curiosity, nothing more.  He needed to know.  Everything.

"I locked the door behind us.  We have all the privacy there is, so you can say whatever you like to me," Jack promised gently.  "I'll do what I can for you."

"Why me?" Daniel asked plaintively, uncomprehending.  With all the women interested in him, why would Jack ever look at a man?  Especially one he considered to be the biggest pain-in-the-ass geek of 'em all?  Daniel had been labelled 'geek' so often, no matter where he was or what he was doing, he might as well have it tattooed across his forehead.  "I just don't get it."

"That's because I know you better than you do," Jack responded indulgently, standing and drawing Daniel up with him.

When Jack took hold of his shoulders, Daniel wondered distractedly if they were going to be hugging again.  Not that he had any objections, per se.  In fact, Jack's hugs were part of both the best and the worst times in Daniel's life, an affirmation of friendship he quietly, privately treasured.

"What?" he blurted, belatedly clueing in that Jack was talking and he hadn't heard a word.

"Just let me know if I'm boring you," Jack invited him with awful politeness.  "I said, I don't have a clue what you're talking about half the time but I buy it anyway."

"I thought you didn't like most of what I say," Daniel retorted, surprised, this particular clash of theirs still fresh in his mind.  He couldn't entirely reconcile that harsh, overbearing, coldly angry Jack with the man holding him now.  The only thing which made any sense - naturally, it hadn't occurred to him then that Jack was afraid for him, that it was all very personal for him.  Jack killing Reese was something else they'd buried, unable to talk.  They might be able to do that now, though.  Daniel didn't know if it made more or less sense to him, Jack killing Reese for him, to save him.  He needed a chance to think it through and decide how he felt about it.  He was more hopeful they could reach understanding, though.  If Jack would talk.  If Daniel could.

"I may not like it, but I still buy it!"

No hugging, Daniel thought, taking momentary refuge in inanity as his confusion began again to overwhelm him.  Oh.  Oh, well.  "Okay."

"What goes on in here," Jack did a Woody Woodpecker number on the side of Daniel's head, "doesn't go on anywhere else, with anyone else.  I guarantee it.  No one thinks like you.  No one possibly could!  I never know what you’re going to come out with next.  And no," he added hastily, reading Daniel's face, "that is not a criticism.  You're addictive.  Adorable.  Absolutely mind-blowing."

Intellectual interest?  Daniel perked up, thinking this was kind of hopeful too.  Unexpected, given the alleged geek factor, but hopeful.  Or maybe just a tad less scary than everything else going on in Jack's fecund mind.  They used to talk - argue - about everything under the sun.  Daniel missed it more than he cared to admit, even now.

"And of course there's this." Giving Daniel no time to react, Jack pushed at his BDU jacket until it fell back from his broad shoulders to bare muscular arms, creamy skin soft and smooth to the touch.  Jack held Daniel's biceps, appreciatively taking his time feeling the hard muscles before running his palms down each arm to take Daniel's strong, slender hands, then he took his wrist and as before, kissed the delicate tracery of veins.  "And this."  He reached around and stroked firmly down over sharp shoulder blades and the strong, straight back before pleasurably curving his hands over Daniel's ass, pulling him closer.

Daniel seemed unable to do anything but stare, his expressive eyes widening incredulously as Jack touched him.

He shifted nervously as Jack carefully pulled off his glasses, dropped them on the desk behind them, and took hold of his face.  "This."  He stroked along the perfect arch of an eyebrow, then ghosted his fingertips over Daniel's cheekbone to touch his mouth, delicately tracing the lush contours.

"You know what you do to me, Daniel.  You saw," Jack whispered hoarsely, lowering his face to Daniel's as he grimly fought against the urge to kiss him.  "You're so damned beautiful.  I can't see anyone else."

Eaten alive by Jack's eyes, Daniel was rigid with indecision, not knowing whether to push away as Jack's body inevitably reacted to his.  Jack's fierce grip around his waist was holding him hard against the swelling bulge at his crotch.  They were locked in place, Daniel unable to back away, Jack unable to push, so close Daniel could feel Jack's breath against his lips.

Passivity was anathema to Daniel.  Alien.  His experiences had taught him more strongly than perhaps anything else he knew that there was always something.  Always.  He would never give up and simply allow things to happen to him.  Nothing could make him a victim except himself.

He reached for Jack, ashamed of the tremor in his hand but wanting to touch.  His fingers splayed over the warm skin of his cheek and temple and Jack lit up, liking this, liking it very much and wanting more.

Daniel stretched up and kissed Jack softly, questioningly.  He staggered back a step as Jack pushed into him, emphatically deepening the pressure against his lips. Off balance in every way, Daniel hooked an arm tight around Jack's neck, scrunching the fabric of the BDU jacket tightly in nervous fingers as he opened to the kiss.  With a groan of pleasure, Jack slid hotly into his mouth, stroking deep to rub urgently over his tongue, demanding a response from him.  Daniel's immediate response possibly wasn't quite what Jack in mind.  Honestly, it was weird to be kissed by someone bigger than him!

Jack pulled away a tad and glared at Daniel, hamming up his outrage.  "Stop thinking and kiss me, for cryin' out loud!" he instructed sternly.

"I was just-"

"Well stop!" Jack took a vengeful bite at Daniel's lower lip then kissed him hard, leaning all his weight into him with evident enjoyment.  He grew gentle at once, rubbing his mouth over and over Daniel's.

It was nice.  Daniel was too conscious that this was Jack kissing him to lose himself in being kissed, but he was ridiculously encouraged he found it nice.  He eased off his death grip on Jack's jacket.

"I plan to kiss you until you kiss me back," Jack whispered against his lips then kissed him again.  He began to stroke Daniel's back, kneading tense muscles.

Daniel thought this was nice too, although he had to admit his inability to come up with a single synonym for what it was worried him slightly.

"Daaaniel," Jack drawled, grazing along Daniel's cheekbone.

"Stop thinking?" Daniel babbled.  "I can't!"

"Okay?" Jack asked, concerned.

Daniel caught himself up on the cusp of another 'nice' moment and kissed Jack instead. He closed his eyes and tried only to taste and feel, not think.  He liked the warmth and immediacy of Jack's response, the flickering licks and nuzzling bites at his lips.  His large, heavy hands were constant reassurance over Daniel's back and shoulders, squeezing the nape of his neck, then slipping up into his hair.

Unable to withstand this tenderness he'd seen so rarely in Jack, Daniel was drawn in close and came naturally to rest against an inviting shoulder, Jack turning in to him a little, their arms finding comfortable places to hold one another.  Jack was considerate of him, not controlled.

It was more reassuring than anything Jack could have said.   Relaxing by degrees, Daniel was able to allow himself to feel he was in safe hands.  There would be no rushing or pressure.  It wasn't even on Jack's mind.  Daniel wasn't disappointing him because he wasn't ready for intercourse.

It began to feel right to deepen the kiss, to give a little of himself.  To trust.  He licked Jack's straight lower lip in modest invitation, sighing as Jack slipped into his mouth.  Rich, limber heat and pressure explored Daniel luxuriously.  He fell for the sweet, drugging intensity as they slowly, slowly stroked tongues, everything fading from him but this.  Heat flushed his skin as pleasure sparked in his groin and shook him.

Jack stared and stared at Daniel's serious, thoughtful face.  Eyes closed, apparently to help him concentrate, his arms wrapped comfortably around Jack's neck, Daniel's tense self-consciousness had eased at last to a dreamy contentment.  Quietly elated at the success of this first careful step, Jack was as tender as he could be, focused on helping Daniel test out the limits of his enjoyment.  It was an absolute pleasure.  Guessing confidence would only come in time, Jack willingly went with the bone-melting Jackson flow, certain there couldn't be a sweeter, gentler man.

Daniel was really getting into it, nuzzling and sucking Jack's lips, rubbing tongues with satisfyingly sensuous, single-minded intensity.

Experimentally, Jack pulled back just a fraction.  Daniel's hand skimmed up to cup his head and pulled him right back.  He also planted a foot on top of Jack's.  Just in case.  Curious fingers worked out where they were and began to play, tufting Jack's hair.

Sensing they were going to be here for a while, Jack took them for a spin, perched his ass on the corner of his desk and tucked Daniel neatly between his outstretched legs.  He was seriously turned on, frankly surprised by his own patience.  This urge he had to take care of Daniel was maybe stronger than he was entirely comfortable with.  He was never going to have all of Daniel and he was wryly aware he shouldn't want to.  He would only set himself up for disappointment every time Daniel wanted a little quality time alone with his artefacts.  He was going to have to be mature.

Not exactly embracing this agenda, Jack sighed and decided the supportive back-rub was maybe a little too mature.  He should at least be scoring some skin. A few swift tugs freed Daniel's T-shirt and Jack eagerly slid his hands beneath.  Daniel opened his eyes and looked down at Jack consideringly, then he leaned back and pushed the BDU jacket from Jack's shoulders.  Jack helpfully held out his hands as the fabric pooled at his wrists.  Daniel yanked the jacket clear and tossed it.  Then he directed a politely enquiring look at Jack, which just about killed him.

"Oh, please!" Jack invited, trying not to laugh.

Daniel reached for his treat.

With a swift duck of his head, Jack ensured Daniel bared more of him than he'd been expecting to, and instantly returned the compliment.  Remembering a gratifyingly pleasurable response from their lovemaking, he instantly buried his face in the hollow of Daniel's throat, licking the smooth, sensitive skin.  Daniel shivered, murmuring an uncertain protest which faded into a soft moan as Jack kissed and suckled a slow path to his shoulder.

Jack stood up then, taking hold of Daniel's ass and hauling him close so every part of them touched as he swayed unconsciously, just wanting more of Daniel.  "Jesus," he groaned thickly, kneading at the firm muscles.  "You have the best ass I've ever seen."  He couldn't help but remember how it felt to have Daniel clenched around him, sliding like silk over his straining cock.

Daniel sighed.

"Do you want this?" Jack asked, compulsively rolling their hips together, his hands clenching tight over firm buttocks to guide Daniel's body into him as they rocked.

Daniel leaned back to stare up into Jack's eyes, his own widening as his body began to respond to the subtle, knowing friction.

Jack offered a kiss, Daniel accepting, meeting him halfway with a delicate, fleeting touch of his lips, then another.  Tantalising butterfly kisses, maddeningly erotic.  Not deliberate, though.  Expressive blue eyes showed Daniel was looking inward, to his slow building arousal.  Hugging Jack hard around the waist, he began to move against him, diffident at first, kisses flowing as he gradually found a satisfying rhythm.

Pushing his hips into Jack's, Daniel was getting hard, his breath coming a little faster.  He didn't look as if this was the end of the world as he knew it, but he wasn't turning cartwheels either.  Daniel stared up into Jack's face as if inviting him to share this profound experience, some of his gravity dissolving into a hint of a smile as Jack stroked his cheek.

"We don't have to do anything with this."  It was almost easy to be generous with Daniel looking at him like this, amazed and confused and achingly vulnerable.  The surge of answering feeling swamped Jack, his heart thumping painfully.  Rapacious sexual predator that he was, he impulsively kissed Daniel's nose and engulfed him in bearhug that rocked him on his heels.  He felt that little smile against his shoulder and then Daniel's arms went around him.  "I like anything you do," Jack confessed pathetically, kissing Daniel's ear.

"I am attracted to you," Daniel confessed consolingly, his voice a trifle muffled by Jack's shoulder.

"I can tell," Jack chuckled, with a wicked little shimmy.  He had to admit he was getting a real charge out of all this, wanting to, really wanting it, and not.  His body was electric, he was all over Daniel, he had him and they were right on the edge together.  "I could push," he whispered.

"I know."  Daniel lifted his head, his eyes shy.    "I could too."

"We're building trust," Jack informed him, completely embarrassed by his whole lovesick puppy thing.

Daniel nodded understandingly and kissed him, doing his best to act as if he hadn't just realised he could do anything to Jack, any damned thing he pleased.

Eagerly sucking on an inquisitively exploring, endearingly polite tongue, Jack gave himself a mental kicking.  He couldn't even play hard to get.

"I can't believe I'm fooling around with you," Daniel muttered as Jack began to nibble his ear.

"I can't believe it either," Jack complained bitterly.  "You're too damned cute.  Resistance is useless.  I mean, come on!  If I was any kind of a man, I'd-"

"Yes?"

Jack looked at him.  After some mental backtracking, a sullen foot was scuffed.  "You are cute," he insisted.  "You possess - in spades - a certain quality of adorability.  It's only bearable because you're hotter than hell."

Hot enough to turn Jack on just by rubbing up against him a little?  Difficult to dismiss the increasingly emphatic evidence, pushing suggestively into him.  Daniel had been so busy trying to quantify Jack's effect on him, he hadn't considered at all his effect on Jack.  "Hot?" he blurted, wondering if he was shallow.

Jack took his hand and slid it between them to cup his straining crotch, his steely erection throbbing against Daniel's palm.  "I'm about climbing out of my skin," he admitted gruffly.

"You want to make love to me?  H-here?" Daniel stammered.  Was the symbolism of this as apparent to Jack as it was to him?  He guessed it was, or Jack wouldn't be half-naked and happily fooling around with him as if nothing else existed for him.  Daniel was the one who was painfully slow on the uptake.  He was lousy at this stuff.

"The gateroom ramp is off-limits for obvious reasons," Jack retorted, his eyes alight with unholy glee.  "Lousy camera angles," he added dulcetly, meaningfully fondling Daniel's behind.

"You want to film it?" Daniel blurted, appalled and unfortunately showing it.

"Already have."

"I'm not going to ask."  How aggravated would Jack get if Daniel tabled a serious discussion of overt sexual symbolism while they were half-naked and interested and all over each other?   "I think I want to."

"What?" Jack asked laconically, visibly sulking at him.

"Make love."

"What can I do for you?"

Jack's instinctive generosity made Daniel blink furiously, more touched than he could say.  He took Jack's face in his hands and drew him into a kiss.  Jack kissed him hard on the mouth then asked again what he could do for him.  Here, at the heart of what Daniel had believed meant the world to Jack, anything was possible.

"Hold me."   
    
    


 

* * *

  
  
  


Abandoning Daniel to struggle alone through his mission report for Mirin ranked exactly nowhere on Jack's list of priorities.  Dealing with Carter right now didn’t come much higher than that because his head wasn't straight enough for him to do her any good.  Hammond probably knew this too, but he'd still sent Jack down here to try to straighten out - well, anything he could, apparently. It was probably natural that Hammond felt empathy for the position Carter was in.  He was in somewhat of the same position himself and neither of them knew Mirin, not the way Jack and Daniel did.

Hammond took a moral responsibility and this mess was weighing heavily on him.  He wasn't going to shake it off any time soon.  Jack figured that, like Carter, the general was focused on the failure and the fallout here.  Not what was happening back there to those people they didn't know.  It was an abstract to them.  Hammond was also making the same assumption Daniel was, that because Jack was okay with Daniel he was in fact okay.  He wasn't.  It was just too long a story, too much emotional energy to make this understood, although he expected Carter would get it just fine right after he got in her face.  He knew he would, even though he didn't want to.

"Major," he greeted her brusquely as he marched into the lab.

Carter jerked upright from her laptop, freezing with her fingers poised over the keyboard, watching Jack as he wandered over and leaned against the wall at the side of her workbench.

"So where do we start?" he said as neutrally as possible.

"Sir?" Carter asked warily, unwilling to commit herself and quite unconsciously sitting to attention.

"It's obvious you and I have some issues to work through."

"Issues?" Carter grimaced, a look of something close to amusement in her eyes.

"Grievous errors of judgement," Jack corrected himself smoothly.  He regretted it almost immediately as Carter's face shuttered in response, but he couldn't take it back.  He couldn't take anything back, could he?  Not his stupid hetero panic-crush on Carter, nothing they'd said in that locked room with Teal'c, Fraiser and Anise looking on.  It had stayed in that room because even then, he couldn't say 'love'.

He guessed Carter grasped this quicker than he did but that was understandable.  She wasn't the one who was running.  Except later, maybe, from him.  She started backing off almost at once and somehow, had never stopped.  Her wide-eyed hero worship was long buried and in its place, too often for him to ignore it now, was contempt.  Casual, unthinking, Carter not really meaning anything by it but worse for Jack because of that.

He straightened up and came to stand opposite her, resting his hands on the workbench.  Pushing into her space.  "It was my error, wasn't it?" he said slowly, staring down at her, his brow furrowed in a deep frown.  "Hormones of clay and all that."  He shook his head, puzzled and rueful.  "I don't know why I didn’t think of this before, Carter.  I plummeted right off that pedestal you had me on."

"Pedestal?" Carter gasped.

Jack couldn't tell if her tone was incredulous or derisive.  "Pedestal," he snapped. "For all the brash bra-burning crap you pulled when we first met, you had it bad."  He paused deliberately, curious to see Carter's reaction, if she was following him.  She reddened but defiantly held his gaze and he guessed she read him just fine.  "Hero worship," he elaborated with relish.

Carter's initial tough-guy bravado had betrayed her inexperience.  Jack was used to seeing it in the kids, fresh out of training, with everything to prove.  He hadn't really been paying attention, though, not with Daniel to look out for and Teal'c to acclimate.  Carter was smarter than any of the rookies he'd taken out in the field.  She realised quick enough there was no room for anything but professionalism out there, that she was needed, and she settled down before Jack had to kick her ass.

"I was da man."  Not a particularly bright one, though.  He'd preened himself on all that bright-eyed enthusiasm and admiration she couldn't quite disguise, petted Carter - metaphorically - when she did good and then he guessed he'd played her off against Daniel.  Only, Daniel didn't play games, he just got hurt and distant.  Jack looked up.  "You could've taken it if I'd retired for you, couldn't you?" he asked softly.  "If I'd cared that much."  Carter looked like she was going to explode but he hadn't given her permission to speak freely so she had to sit and wait in seething silence.  "I didn't though.  Care enough.  I just got hormonal.  Right?"

"Sir."

It was right there, the edge he'd seen so much in her recently.

"Just another middle-aged guy facing a slow slide to a desk job, obvious enough to have the hots for his female subordinate."  It was crass and she didn't like it, not hearing it, not Jack saying it.  It was a long time since Carter had had to stifle a smile at the stuff he said. Even longer since Daniel had had that bouncy expectancy of his, like Jack was going to say something great, something worth his time, whether he agreed with it or not.  In different ways, Jack had driven them both away.  "Mid-life, mid-career crisis, whatever.  Not something to be proud of, is it?" he hinted, tossing out a little bait.

"Not for either of us," Carter retorted, biting.

"No," Jack agreed mildly.  "You've spent the past year or so watching me and wondering what in hell you were thinking, right?"

"Something like that," Carter admitted stiffly.  "It was a mistake," she emphasised.  "On both our parts."

"Yeah," Jack agreed.  "We both got self-absorbed and treated Daniel like crap."

It about killed Carter she couldn't deny it, leaving her silent and glaring up at him hatefully,

Jack's head really had been up his ass, hadn't it?  Daniel was right about Carter's need for approval.  It drove her sometimes, to the point it made her turn her back on Daniel as a friend and sometimes, when he needed her, as a teammate.  Not when lives were on the line, of course not, but for the small things.  Like Daniel needing her belief in him sometimes.  She loved Daniel like he was blood and when she got all of Jack's attention, when she won that nasty little power game Jack had made them both play, she'd had to put away the consequences, not let herself see Daniel's bewildered insecurity.  Jack wouldn't let her have both of them, there wasn't room, and so she had to choose.

Of course she couldn't handle what she'd traded for her very real, very deep friendship with Daniel.  Colonel Jack, the ignominious bastard.  A practiced one, too.  He hadn't given Carter any choice but to back off from him, had he? Because even when he knew it was going nowhere, when she knew, in that room, strapped into the zatarc device, with his back against the wall and spilling the absolute truth, all he could come up with was caring more than he was supposed to.  Nothing like the feeling she was looking for, but he hadn’t been able to let it go.  He kept pushing, too often right where Daniel would be sure and see him.

Carter backing away let him off the hook, right?  No damage done, she moved on, had a parade of guys she took an interest in.  Jack told her 'good for you' and let it all slide like he let everything slide.  No harm done, huh?

It didn't matter now that Jack hadn't meant to hurt Daniel that way, to be so cheap or to freeze him out so completely.  He hadn’t meant to hurt Carter either.  Looking back, his conscience hadn't been any easier than hers but she was the one who'd had the balls to do something about it.  She pulled away from Jack, blanking him like it never happened and she kept right on trucking.  It took her time to mend fences with Daniel, months of it, and in all that time, she never looked back.  What she felt for Jack, though, she showed.  More and more she showed it.

Jack had crossed the line and understood at last that he'd made Carter cross it too.  She would never have done that on her own.  She was totally straight that way, the Air Force meant too much to her.  She was rigid about cause and consequence.  Blame, even.  Her world had to make sense.  He was sure Carter blamed herself, but she blamed him more.  She was right about that.

"I put you in an impossible position," he said brusquely.  "I'm sorry for that."

Carter looked stunned, falling back in her chair, as open mouthed as Daniel had been, the one time Jack had had the grace to apologise to him.

"I don't think there's any point in us being anything but honest with each other, is there?" Jack suggested tiredly.  "It's all gone too far."

"No," Carter agreed.  "There isn't."

"I'll tell you what I think," Jack went on.  "I think you never really saw me, that you never needed anything from me but my approval."  Carter flinched at that, wincing when he picked up on her reaction.  Jack remembered then what Daniel had said to her this morning.  "That's it, isn't it?  My good opinion used to mean something to you."

"It still does!" Carter flared.  "You're a good officer, the best I've ever served with."

"In the field, maybe," Jack said dismissively.  "Every place else, you find me lacking.  You used to have tolerance for my foibles, humour even, but I built you up and let you down hard.  Right?"

Carter didn't want to see it and she wouldn't say it, but Jack wondered what was on her mind all those months ago when she was working to repair her friendship with Daniel.  Had she thought about her own motives for letting herself slide into infatuation with Jack, or was it just that he'd proved to her that he hadn't been worth compromising her professionalism for?

"Was it about all the times I wouldn't hear you, Carter?" he asked her directly.  "The times it seemed to you I would only hear Daniel?"  He thought this was a fair question.  It seemed to fit, that it was always about Daniel for him.

"It isn't a question of perception, Sir," Carter contradicted him sharply.  "You've shown favouritism to Daniel from the start and you can't deny it.  You've never maintained the proper distance from him."

"No," Jack admitted soberly, surprising her again.  "I haven't.  But then neither have you.  This was and will always be a unique situation.  If not for the Stargate, Carter, your odds of being assigned to a ground combat unit were as low as Daniel's.  You're lucky we needed you both out there and Hammond had the vision to embrace that."  He looked at her thoughtfully.  "You beat out everyone else to get this spot on the Stargate programme but then Daniel beat you.  I doubt you want to hear this, Major, but even though Daniel doesn't think in those terms, there are times you do.  You do have this drive to be the best."

Carter's head dropped.  "I know," she said slowly in a stifled tone.  "I've been thinking about what Daniel said to me.  I - I can't stop thinking," she blurted out, looking strained.  "There are times when I've clashed with Daniel, when I wouldn't have-" she began and then froze up.  "He asked me once if I'd ever had a feeling, a belief I couldn't explain but acted on regardless because it was so strong."  She tried to smile.  "He didn't like the answer.  Part of me has moved on, the better part.  The rest - I'm still in that place.  Too much of me is."

"Oh, that hair-shirt is big enough for both of us, Carter," Jack said dryly.

"I've never consciously-"

"No," Jack agreed sharply.  "You're a good and honourable person and a fine officer.  It's not the cause, Carter, it's the effect.  We compromised our professionalism and frankly, it wasn't worth it.  Not for you.  I've never doubted your loyalty to the team or your integrity, but at times I have doubted your respect for me and for my command.  You have to suck it up, we both know that, but there are times you haven't troubled to disguise your resentment."

"And is that wholly my fault?"

"No."

"You think I don't know what a mistake I made?"  She stood up, planting her fists on the workbench, leaning in emphatically.  "I knew it during that mess with the Enkarrans!  You gave me an order I was within my rights to question and I didn't.  I didn't!  You gave me an order, I disagreed with you entirely, and I still obeyed.  I couldn't believe you would do something like that to me and I couldn't believe myself for allowing it!"

"Carter," Jack tried to interrupt.

"Daniel was on that ship!" she stormed at him.  "It wasn't just the value-judgement you made about who deserved to live and who to die, or the fact you ignored the general's orders and I knew it.  He told you to find another way but the way you found was not what he meant!  I could have stopped you.  I should have stopped you for all those reasons and I didn't.  I rigged that bomb for you and Daniel was on that ship for you!  He was ready to die to stop you having to do what you planned and I was helping you kill him."  She shuddered, hugging herself tightly, unaware she was echoing Daniel's defensiveness.  "Counting down for you.  What does that say about me?" she asked, close to pleading.

"That you're human?" Jack said gently.

"It was over for me then," Carter drearily went on as if he hadn't spoken.  "I understood then that you didn't respect me, that I would always be your subordinate first.  That I was choiceless."

"Is that what this has been about?" Jack demanded, angry all over again.  "This thing with you and Daniel?  I made you see something in yourself you hated and you - what?  You had to take back my respect?  I had to choose?"

"You did choose," Carter said coldly.  "You chose to listen to me."  Her face wrenched and for a moment he thought she was going to cry.  "I was so wrapped up in making you take me on my own merits, to earn the right from you to choose the way Daniel did, I didn't know what I was doing to Daniel.  That's the worst thing.  I had something to prove to you, to myself, and I didn't know, I didn’t even see him."

"Well, he saw us just fine!" Jack lashed out, stung by this.  What Daniel saw was the two of them repeating all over again the same goddamned dance that left him sidelined in the first place.  Carter had played Jack just like he'd played her and between them, they took away Daniel's place on the team, his belief in their acceptance.  Knowing how difficult that kind of confidence was for Daniel, it pained Jack to think how hard it must have hit him to lose it after he'd learned to trust it.  "Maybe we shouldn't work together," he said curtly.

"No," Carter agreed quietly.  "Maybe we shouldn't."  She looked steadily at Jack.

"We both want to stay with SG-1."

"That's no longer our choice to make."

He walked away from her then, at a loss to know what to do.  Daniel didn't want him to leave SG-1, wasn't about to let him, so his choices were even fewer than Carter's.

"Sir?" Carter called out to him, catching him up at the doorway.  "What I said before?  About Daniel?  I was wrong."  She was very grave.  "If this was just Daniel, if he was the only one affected by what I did here - what I failed to do," she amended consciously, "He would have just taken it.  As if he didn't matter."

Jack got what she meant immediately, his eyes widening.  "You're right," he said reluctantly.  "If Daniel had been alone out there on Mirin, I highly doubt he'd have let on to Hammond for a second that he wasn't sure he could work with you."  Jack would never have known how deep their problems went.

"I know him pretty well."  Carter tried again to smile but it didn't reach her eyes.  "What I can’t stop thinking is how much else he's just taken."

"Because it was us."  It wasn't a question and neither of them had any answers.

"It has to be a lot," Carter said grimly.  "He has to have felt this way a lot for him not to be able to hide it now."

"He's good at hiding."

"Not this time."  Carter's eyes were shadowed, inward looking.  "This is more than he can take."  She looked Jack straight in the eye.  "I guess we finally wore him down."

"You know, I do care about you far more than I'm supposed to," Jack offered, unsure if he was only compounding his offence.

"It would be easier if we didn't," Carter responded soberly.


	7. Part Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slash: Jack and Daniel involved in a loving and committed relationship, which usually involves sex.  
> Rating: NC-17  
> Category: Angst. Drama. First Time. Friendship. Hurt/Comfort.  
> Season/Spoilers: Season 5. Spoilers for Seasons 1-5. Politics. Need. Legacy. Shades of Grey. Divide & Conquer. Failsafe. Menace. The Sentinel.  
> Synopsis: When Daniel's belief in himself and his place in the team are shaken to the core, can Jack help him find his true voice again?  
> Warnings: Angst and ambiguity make this quite dark in tone.

"Don't tell me," Jack groaned when the elevator doors opened on nineteen and he found a severely pissed Jaffa waiting for him.

"DanielJackson requested permission to return home early and General Hammond granted it."

Although Teal'c didn't say it, Jack had no difficulty mentally inserting the 'foolishly' in front of 'granted'.  "And?"

"I have called him several times.  His cell phone is not activated and the doorman reports that he has not returned home."  Teal'c stalked past Jack onto the elevator.  "I will accompany you."

"Thanks, but I can handle this one on my own," Jack said curtly, fuming.  He knew he shouldn't have left Daniel alone to deal with that report crap!  Or was it some post-canoodling confidence crisis?  Daniel was very ruffled when they finally emerged from Jack's office.  Speechless, even.  Silence was never a good sign, not in the Jackson. "I don't need you," he insisted rudely, scowling at Teal'c.

"That was not a request, O'Neill.  I will accompany you," Teal'c contradicted flatly.  "I am concerned about DanielJackson."

There were days when it was an absolute pain in the ass to lead SG-1.  Days when, without saying a word, Teal'c and Daniel managed to not let Jack forget for a single second that they followed him by choice.  Days when his - their - choice was not Jack's and he nagged at Jack until he caved.  The hard-bitten veterans who ran the Special Ops training course on resisting mind control techniques had never met Daniel Jackson, that was all Jack had to say.

"I suppose two of us hunting him down is more efficient than one," he admitted grudgingly.  "Not that I have any problem with Daniel being out all alone," he added unconvincingly.

"Nor do I."  Teal'c neatly clasped his hands behind his back and avoided Jack's eyes.

"He's thirty-six," Jack noted.  "Much too old to be running away or anything."

"DanielJackson has no reason to run away from us," Teal'c judged.

Jack cleared his throat.  "Nope."

"We are his friends."

"Yep."

"He simply returned to his home."  Clearly, an action which failed to meet with Teal'c's unqualified approval.  "Without informing us."

"It's not like we keep him on a leash or anything."  Since he happened to be glancing down there, Jack noted a suspicious spot on the toe of his boot and punctiliously hooked his foot around his calf to polish it off on his pants.

"We are merely properly concerned for the welfare of a beloved-"

"And sensitive," Jack interpolated.

"Most beloved and sensitive-"

"And upset!" Jack nodded vaguely at this. "Don't forget upset."

"Friend," Teal'c snapped, scowling at Jack, whom he appeared to think was upstaging him.  "One who may require our counsel and support."

"He would if he knew what was good for him," Jack complained broodingly, all too aware that Daniel was infuriatingly independent minded.

"We will explain what is good for him when we locate him," Teal'c announced decidedly.

"Well, when you put it like that."  Jack allowed himself to be encouraged.  "Daniel did say one time he understood our first instinct was to protect," he reminded Teal'c.

"I recall this incident with great clarity."

"He didn't even look all that freaked when he said it," Jack observed thoughtfully.

Teal'c inclined his head in gracious agreement with this reassuring sentiment.

The elevator swooped to a halt which left Jack's stomach wrapped round his ears.  They exited and proceeded smartly along to the gear-up room, where they stripped, rapidly changed into their street-clothes, turned around and barrelled right back the way they came.

Jack's inconvenient conscience gave him a bit of a kicking.  "He just went home," he reminded Teal'c as they soared upwards again and his stomach settled around his feet.  "He's not missing."

"We do not know where DanielJackson is.  That is my definition of missing," Teal'c retorted.

In all fairness, Jack had to concede this point to the big guy.  It was pretty much his definition too.  Recalling his mental vow to be mature, he gracefully signified his agreement and politely urged Teal'c to elaborate.

"He did not return to his home.  The doorman assured me of this."

"The doorman could be lying."

"Then we will begin our search for DanielJackson by questioning him."

"Damn straight we will."

The elevator unexpectedly halted.  The doors opened.  Several marines from SG-3 looked in at Jack and Teal'c.  Jack and Teal'c looked back at them.

"This one's full," one of the marines called, prudently stepping back into the arms of the marine behind him.

The doors eventually closed.

"You know," Jack began thoughtfully, quietly processing this.  He liked to think of himself as, fundamentally, at his core or whatever, an honest man.

"I do not know.  Explain."

"Did you actually hear anything we just said?"

"I did."

"And we're surprised he bolted?"   
    
    


 

* * *

  
  


"Um?"

General Hammond looked up from his reports, his careworn face lightening.  "Come in, son," he greeted Daniel warmly.

Daniel smiled hesitantly and slipped inside the office, carefully closing the door behind him.

Hammond gestured at one of the chairs before his desk and Daniel sat.

"How are you doing, Dr. Jackson?" the general asked, his eyes keen.

"I came to ask you the same thing, Sir," Daniel replied.

The general smiled at him, glancing down at his desk for a moment.  "Better for having you and Colonel O'Neill back home safe."

"Despite everything?" Daniel blurted gauchely.

"In my experience, it's only in death that hope fails."

Surprised and touched by this forthright sentiment, Daniel leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees.  "You've faced difficult missions before," he stated respectfully.

"Throughout my career," Hammond agreed reflectively.  "No choice which affects the lives of others is easy.  It shouldn't be.  I've always believed that the good officer is the one who accomplishes his mission objectives and brings his team back alive."

"That's what happened here.  On paper, at least," Daniel said unhappily, thinking about the mission report he'd had to walk away from.  Each time he put finger to keyboard, he blanked.  Anger was a tangible thing, its impact everywhere in the body.  His heart thumped so hard, it felt like it was trying to climb out his chest.  His face burned but he felt chilled and oddly weak in his hands, the numbing sensation climbing his arms.  He knew what he had to do but it seemed for now it was beyond him.

"On paper," Hammond agreed heavily.  "The other services consider the Air Force has it easy, that we kill by remote, without ever facing down the enemy.  That even with the radical improvements in our targeting technology, we kill indiscriminately."

"And what do you think?"

"The Air Force prides itself on its ethical standards, the quality and commitment of all its officers and personnel."  Hammond looked at Daniel then.  "We do some damned distasteful things."

"That's what Jack says too."

The general nodded.  "We do them well.  Every man and woman here performs their duty with the utmost professionalism and dedication.  Everyone here goes above and beyond my greatest expectations.  I'm proud of this command, most especially in situations such as this, when the safeguards designed to hold us to the standards of conduct we pride ourselves on, fail.  The Air Force is like a family, Dr. Jackson, in a very real sense.  We stick together, we take care of our own, we bring out the best in one another and we don't leave our people behind."

"I see that every day," Daniel offered shyly, plucking absently at the fabric of his pants, stretched tight over his knee.

"I see that in this situation, the qualities which are the best of us are the very ones which caused us to fail in our duty."

"General!" Daniel exclaimed distressfully as Hammond held up a hand, asking for him to listen a while longer.  He obediently subsided, watching anxiously.

"The best and perhaps the worst in us," the general went on.  "I fully supported Major Carter in her conclusions and recommendations" he said firmly.  "Like the major, I was focused on getting you two men home.  I don't believe there is anything I would have done differently.  I know Major Carter feels the same.  And yet, those people on Mirin will still be dying."

"Ultimately, I don't think anything could stop that," Daniel assured him grimly.  "They have too much invested in their belief system to be able to reverse the social engineering which has so completely bastardised their culture, familial bonds, education and religion - every part of their lives.  I doubt the Mirin will ever have the moral courage to take responsibility.  It would require an act of individual resistance and the driving socialising force of those people is subsuming the individual into the collective.  It is, literally, the needs of the many, not the one."  It was difficult for Daniel to admit this, but the general's candour deserved to be met by nothing less than his own.  "I don't understand them, Sir.  I - I can't.  It's too - alien."

"It doesn't surprise me to hear that," Hammond responded thoughtfully.  "The Mirin belief system is the antithesis of yours, despite the surface similarity."

"Sir?" Daniel stiffened, startled and protesting.

"You're not focused on the individual either, at least not when the individual is you."  Hammond smiled.  "I'm still waiting for an answer to my question, son."

Daniel needed a tad more to go on.

"'I'm fine' is not an acceptable response," Hammond hinted.

"Oh."  That question.  "How am I?"  Daniel waved a vague hand.

"Doing?"  The general nodded encouragingly.

"Not fine?"

"Are you asking me or telling me?" Hammond asked dryly.  "I'd like to think after all these years, I can trust that you’re able to talk to me about something like this."

"I'm not fine," Daniel said in a rush, feeling absurdly guilty.  Impossible for him to refuse such an appeal when it came from George Hammond, just about the finest man he knew.  He was aware of the irony here, though, that he could speak out only when it was something which was needed from him.  It wasn't a choice he would ever willingly make.  This defence went too deep, it was simply part of who he was now.  For the general, though, he would try.  "I've compromised myself to fit in with where the team is.  I've conditioned myself to a more military mindset and I can't - I really can't do it anymore."

"I don't want you to."  Hammond surprised him again.  "I've come to understand that what you bring to the SGC is unique, Dr. Jackson.  It isn't your education or your knowledge or your skills.  It's you, yourself."

Daniel slumped uncomfortably as his face began to burn.

"Your voice is distinctive from ours, a necessity I lost sight of through," the general paused fractionally, "familiarity, I guess," he admitted uncomfortably.   "This is not to take away from the very fine officers we have in Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter, but their training and instincts guide them towards emotional detachment, to the achievement of their objectives.  Their job is to carry out their orders to the best of their ability."  Hammond was looking very grave.  "There are times orders and training fail.  When the military response is exactly the wrong one."

"It isn't always," Daniel pointed out fairly.  Jack wasn't the only one who'd learned to see in shades of grey, to have made difficult choices and to not always walk away the winner.

"I can't disagree.  I ask too much of SG-1, I ask you to fulfil too many roles.  I can only rationalise what the function and purpose of my first team is, separate out and focus on what makes it unique."  The general reached out to place his hands on his desk, palms down and fingers spread, a tangible sign of his earnestness.  "Looking back to the formation of this command and the fulfilment of our mandate from the President and the Joint Chiefs, I designated SG-1 our explorer unit, the team to take on the key responsibility of first contact."

"Which is why I'm staying with the team," Daniel acknowledged.  "But - Sam?" he asked hesitantly.

"The primary function of SG-1 is communicative.  Everything flows from that."

"If I'm staying with SG-1?  Sir, I need Jack."  Daniel leaned forward urgently, determined to hammer his point home.    "I don't think he believes me, not completely, there's too much going on with us all right now, but I do.  I need him.  I can't do it without him.  He has to stay with the team."

"That isn't a decision either of us can make for Colonel O'Neill, Doctor," Hammond reproved him gently.  "Though I tend to agree with you," he added with a twinkle.  "You two are doing better?" he asked smoothly.

Daniel found himself nodding before he had time to actually think about a suitable response.  "We're," he frowned, suddenly feeling excruciatingly exposed, utterly unable to vocalise any part of the insane, enervating electricity between him and Jack, the unsuspected eroticism of touch, of a look.  "Talking," he said lamely.

"That's good to know," the general responded politely, a flatness to his tone which showed he knew there was much more to this than Daniel could adequately say.

"It's not - easy," Daniel offered.  Not for him and not for Jack with his juggernaut tendencies.

"No," Hammond acknowledged, softening.  "You don't think you'll be required to compromise yourself further if Colonel O'Neill continues to lead SG-1?"

It was a fair question and a hard one to answer but Daniel felt obliged to give it a shot.  "In a better way, I think," he said, unable to explain a lot of very tangled feelings any more clearly than this.  "I hope," he corrected himself awkwardly.  "Jack too."

The general's face lightened again as he read more into Daniel's words than Daniel was maybe comfortable with.  "Do you feel ready to continue with your missions?"

"To fulfil my true function here?" Daniel wasn't able to keep the eagerness from his voice.  Feeling he was being deeply insensitive, he flashed the general an apologetic look.

"I'll take that under advisement," Hammond said solemnly.  "As a preliminary, you and Colonel O'Neill can join me tomorrow at 10:00 to review mission proposals."

"That's - thank you," Daniel stammered.  He guessed it was a test of sorts, a straight-forward way for the general to see if he and Jack were trying to reach better understanding.  Becoming aware of watchful silence, he glanced up questioningly.

"Your mission report?"

"I haven't finished it," Daniel replied evasively.

"If you'd like to discuss?"

"No!"  Cutting the general off mid-sentence, Daniel winced at his vehemence.  "No.  Thank you."  He couldn’t.  Each time he'd fooled himself into thinking it was time, he could do this, he would tell his lie and move on, he found that he froze up, shaken through with anger all over again.  "It's difficult," he explained stiffly.

"For us all," Hammond quietly reminded him.

Daniel badly needed to be doing something, to move himself forward somehow.  Long experience told him that if he could resolve just one problem, even the smallest thing, it would ease up everything.  The meeting to discuss missions was one resolution of sorts, a commitment to his and Jack's future with the team but he didn't feel he could wait.  Tiredness crashing, he found himself wanting out, wanting to breathe.  "I'd like to go," he asked dully.  "If I may?  Home," he added, unsure he was making his meaning clear.

"Of course," the general agreed with a certain quality of sympathy.  "I have faith in your judgement, Doctor."

"Thank you."  Daniel stood up slowly, standing looking down uncertainly at George Hammond, seemingly still his friend.  "Just - thank you," he said inadequately.

There was something in the general's eyes, an old pain.  "Son, I've been here."

"It's why we need you, I think," Daniel offered quietly.  The most difficult courage for Daniel was that which came, unflinching, with clear vision.  For him, it pretty much defined who George Hammond was.   
    
    


 

* * *

  
  


Everyone needed a happy place, a retreat in which to lick wounds and take stock.  Daniel's had floor upon floor of books, welcomed pets and bare feet and served free coffee.

He had a lot of stock to take.  Balancing what he should do with what he could do had narrowed his list of possibilities to just one.  He couldn't begin to think about being able to work again with Sam until he was calmer and at this point, he was beginning to think 'if' rather than when.  He had been eating an emergency ice cream - vanilla fudge with everything on top - in Acacia Park before he even guessed why Hammond had been so watchful.  The review meeting tomorrow - he simply hadn't picked up on the fact that Sam was excluded from it.   So much for the supportive teammate.  He couldn't even get through his mission report, something which had never happened to him before.  All of his failures were thoroughly documented. There had been nothing quite like this, though.  Nothing so personal.

He didn't think he'd ever felt this defeated before.  It was disturbing to him to be unable to attain even the small distance he needed so he could pick himself up and move on.  He was too depressed, too resentful, to be able to gain any kind of perspective.  He'd committed himself to helping Sam stay with SG-1 before he'd given himself a chance to decide how he felt about that.  Telling himself he was trying to be a good friend wasn't drowning out the still, small voice inside insisting that he was in his passivity perpetuating the same errors responsible for reducing him to this pitch of confusion and turmoil in the first place.

Daniel couldn't shake the feeling that he'd hit bottom.  Jack and the others - they recognised it before he did.  What was it Jack said?  That he made it too easy for his friends to ignore him.  He felt unable to assert his own needs, a cycle he had no real idea how to break.  It had brought him here, though, to the Chinook.  He could try.

With a mug of coffee in hand, Daniel ambled upstairs and along to Sexuality, quietly determined to help himself make some informed choices about his prospective - if Jack had anything to do with it -future as a practicing homosexual.  He felt he had to do this precisely because it was personal.  Instinctively he equated that with unimportant, and as he had to start asserting himself somewhere, here he was.  In a cul-de-sac in Sexuality.

"One crisis at a time, Jackson," Daniel muttered, taking refuge in a sip of coffee as he ran a preliminary eye along the shelves.  He was immediately drawn to a tempting array of titles like 'The limits to union' and 'A desired past' but he wasn't here to enjoy himself.  This was strictly educational.  A fact-finding mission.  Jack's survival litany of 'what-do-we-have-and-what-do-we-need?' was quite like a research strategy.  Daniel was good at those.  What he had was one lamentably ignorant, hitherto mostly celibate and slightly vague heterosexual and what he needed was - did they do 'Gay sex for dummies'?

They did a series called 'Hot & Horny', neither of which seemed applicable to Daniel.  He was suspicious of alliteration at the best of times and in this context, it was alarming.  'The joy of gay sex' seemed like a respectably weighty tome, the publishers' blurb on the back promising positive and responsible advice on not just sex but self-esteem.  Daniel was not enthused.  He hadn't even opened the book and it had managed to peg him as a stereotype.  Tucking it reluctantly under his arm, he took another drink of his coffee and browsed further.

'The ins and outs of gay sex' combined business with pleasure, promising a complete education on pleasurable male-male intimacy and a detailed medical reference.  Admittedly, a chapter entitled 'Symptoms to send you running to the doctor' didn’t wholly reassure, but he was willing to give it a shot.

'Sex, orgasm and the mind of clear light: the sixty four arts of gay male love' seemed worthy of further attention, although based on their one time together, he didn't think Jack needed much in the way of assistance on delivering the Ecstatic Orgasm.

It really did annoy him that Jack knew it was the best sex of Daniel's life.  Jack, being Jack, knew he was annoying Daniel too.  He was enjoying the situation and Daniel far too much.  Adorable?  What a horribly tactless thing to say to a man!  As a potential lover, Daniel found Jack lacking in a number of key areas.  For example, he wasn't bothering to hide how much he was turned on by the mere idea of Daniel's inexperience.  He seemed to find the, um, not to put too fine a point on it, the fumbling and floundering, deeply arousing.

Daniel was not about to play the palpitating Victorian virgin, no matter how much of a kick Jack got out of it.  In this spirit, he added a couple of generic 'joys of' manuals to his heap of books, then hunkered down to investigate the lower shelves.

"'On the discursive limits of sex'," he mused, toying with an intriguing title.  He had to conscientiously remind himself he was not here to have fun and moved on, glancing back a time or two.  The Chinook only had this one copy.  What if it sold before he came back?  Was he being assertive here or wussy?  After some consideration of this tricky question, Daniel decided to buy it anyway and have some fun while Jack wasn't looking.  He was able to justify 'The spirit and the flesh' because they had run into American Indian cultures off-world before and sexual diversity was just as likely out there as it was here.

Then he spotted something extremely unlikely about bacon, squinted, discovered it wasn't a misprint and had to sit down, his books scattering around him.

"'Men are pigs.  But we love bacon'?" Daniel bleated incredulously.  "Men are?  Men.  Bacon?"  He blinked hard at the blurb on the back.  "Well-lubricated advice?"  He put the book down and picked the coffee up, staring blankly at the packed shelves in front of him, as disconcerted as he'd ever been in his life.  He liked sex.  It certainly wasn't the first thing he thought about or the last, and as for the pervasive urban myth that men think about it every sixty seconds, that worked for him only if what they were thinking about were books.  He liked it, though.  Sex.  It was just that, on the evidence so far, he pretty much seemed to like reading more.

This led him back to Jack, as most things in his life seemed to. Having Jack as his lover wouldn't simply be about re-defining his sexuality, would it?  It would require re-defining his identity and much of his focus in life.  The relationship Jack wanted with him was only partly about sex.  It was naïve to fool himself into thinking any of this would be comfortable.  Change could be embraced or rejected but it was also, in his experience, inevitable.  His choice was, on the surface, simple; to grow or to retrench.  Stagnate even.  That was no choice at all.

Daniel tried to imagine his space filled with Jack, his time with vibrancy and more visceral pleasures than he was used to.  It was the opposite of the life he had, of the person he thought he was.  Jack was tender but implacable, pushing until he got everything he wanted, pushing through defences no one else had breached.  Jack would always be pushing, in his bed, in his body.  His mind.

He was out of his mind!  Jack was seducing him, wooing him with warmth and edgy, can-barely-keep-his-hands-off passion, and they both knew it.  Daniel pushed too.  They both seemed to require the other's undivided attention.  The attraction - and not even in any sexual context - was mutual.

Daniel was as afraid of the intensity of the intimacy Jack wanted with him as he was drawn to it.  There was a naturalness to this which made him feel it wasn't necessarily a change in their friendship so much as it was a deepening, an evolution.  His feelings for Jack weren't different.  At least, he didn't think so.  They'd grown over time, sincerely.  Though he doubted he would ever have reached this physical awareness without prompting, he was becoming more reconciled to loving his friend enough to be open to the prospect of sexual intimacy with him, however much it would change him.  Even the risks made him feel more alive, as intoxicating to him as any discovery he'd ever made.

Meaning of life stuff.

God, he hoped Jack would be patient.  Uptight and cerebral was not a happy mix.  After a beat, he conscientiously added inexperienced.  Which brought him back to why he was here.  Remedying this unfortunate condition required actually doing something other than staring at his feet and depressing himself with his personal assessing.  He was supposed to be asserting himself.   Taking the bull by the balls.  Or at least the book by the cover.

Hesitating over which instructive manual to embarrass himself with first, Daniel's eye was drawn again to the enticing illustration on the front of 'The spirit and the flesh'.

Maybe just the foreword?

The book was in his hand and then it was open. Daniel sighed.  He was easily distracted too.  He couldn't have sex and books.  Not in the position Jack preferred anyway.  If he was on his stomach, though, he could - he could admit he was never going to have enough freaking time and just do this!

Daniel picked up the 'bacon' book and braced himself to take some well-lubricated advice.

After some cautious skimming, he rapidly came to the realisation that his understanding of what constituted male-male sex was somewhat limited.   In the foreword alone there was at least one more use for lubricant than had previously occurred to him.  He'd never actually held another man's penis so it seemed excusable to him that mutual masturbation wasn't the first thing he'd think of as a use for apricot oil.  If it was in the 'bacon' book then he felt reasonably certain masturbation had to be an acceptable substitute for intercourse although it hadn't occurred to him until now that there were acceptable substitutes.

It would be a big step if he could stop defining sex in purely heterosexual terms.  He and Jack weren't starting out having 'real', albeit unplanned sex, then limiting themselves to pedestrian petting.  The 'bacon' book was emphatic that everything two guys enjoyed doing together was acceptable.

"Oh!"  His attention caught by a reference to a familiar technique intriguingly nestled near the bottom of the contents page, Daniel flipped through the chapters and settled down to read further.

He was something of an expert in frottage.   
    
    


 

* * *

  
  


"Having fun?"

"Not until I get home."

A snort of not very suppressed laughter greeted this.

His brain engaging at this point, Daniel tilted his head back and looked up.  "Jack."

"Helloooo."  Jack gave him a little wave.

"DanielJackson."

"Teal'c."

"Whatchadoin?"

"Research."

"Into?"

They all looked down at the book which was open on Daniel's lap.

"Fully illustrated," Daniel pointed out unnecessarily.

"Full colour, too," Jack observed composedly.

"May I see the title?" Teal'c requested politely.

Stunned into acquiescence mostly because he couldn’t figure out why he wasn't blushing or stammering incoherently, Daniel closed his book and held it up for inspection.

"Only sixty-four?" Jack demanded incorrigibly.

"What is the clear light of the mind?"

"If you have to ask, you're not doing it right," Jack smirked.

Teal'c was not amused.

Neither was Daniel, who guessed he'd just made Jack a very happy man.  In fact, if he wasn't mistaken, he'd made Jack proud!  This annoyed him intensely but he didn't have time to do anything about it.  His friends took hold of his arms and pulled him to his feet.  He wriggled a bit but they kept hold of him.

"My books," he insisted politely, uncomfortably shrugging his shoulders.  Grips were, if anything, tightened.  "Do you understand the concept of personal space?" he complained.

"We are being supportive," Teal'c astonishingly claimed as they wheeled around as one man and began to march Daniel out of his Sexuality cul-de-sac.

"That's nice," Daniel responded, digging in his heels.  "I appreciate it.  Now let go and back off!"

"We'd prefer not to," Jack informed him.  There was a certain amount of throat-clearing and, when Daniel looked around at him, eye-avoidance.

Daniel did what he saw toddlers do when their parents were being difficult.  He went completely limp and left Jack and Teal'c wholly supporting his considerable weight.  They ground to a gratifying halt.  Small children had a lot of smarts when it came to getting their own way.  "I want my books!"

"Then we will summon an assistant before we leave this place and arrange for their delivery."

"I want my books now and I also want an explanation."

"We have to go buy your doorman a fruit basket."

"My - whaaa?  What? Fruit?" Daniel asked giddily, losing a step or two of ground from sheer stupefaction.  "Why?

"He does not like flowers."

Daniel gaped at Teal'c as Jack made 'what he said' noises.  "Wh-wh-why?"

"Allergies."

"I meant what did you do!" Daniel snarled.

"We did nothing," Teal'c insisted, with slightly betraying emphasis on 'did'.

"Then what did you say?"

"Nothing," Jack claimed airily.  "We were just-"

"Supportive."

"Supportive!  Exactly."

"Oh my god."

"You ran out on us," Jack chided him, sounding wounded.

"We did not know where you were."  Teal'c was giving of his best, stern parent-wise.

"Naturally, we were concerned."

"You need to buy my doorman fruit and it's my fault?" Daniel flared indignantly, cutting right to the chase.

"I wouldn't have put it quite like-"

"Yes."

"He's not wrong," Jack admitted after a moment's pause for reflection.  "Ow!" he yelped, reeling away into Well Woman.  "What was that for?"

"My foot slipped."

"Into my ankle?"

Seething, Daniel stooped, selectively scooped, then stormed off with his books-for-fun of the quite definitely solitary kind.

Jack watched this dramatic exit with considerable aesthetic appreciation.  Daniel's rear did bear repeated viewing.  But what was with this running away shit?  Daniel might as well wear a sign.  'I want you.  Chase me.'  Jack was very much looking forward to helping Daniel make this connection.

"How mad do you think he'll be if we follow him?" he wondered aloud.

"Let us find out."

"I don't know about you, big guy," Jack grinned at Teal'c and straightened up.  "But I'm planning to assist Daniel with his research."

"We will share with him the benefits of our wise counsel."

"I love how you can just come out with that stuff with a totally straight face," Jack observed admiringly.

Teal'c graciously inclined his head as he assisted Jack to retrieve a stray book or two, abandoned in Daniel's wake.

"'Men are pigs'," Jack read out the title of one as they moseyed out of the health section. "'But we like bacon'."

"I find this reading matter most disturbing."  Frowning, Teal'c picked up speed.  "We must ask questions of DanielJackson."

"Lots of questions," Jack agreed with alacrity, abandoning his theatrical limp.  "Lots of counsel."  He brightened up.  "It's a bonding thing."

"Indeed."

"There's no point rushing," Jack counselled, deciding to get in the swing of things.  "He won't have gone far.  He forgot to ask us how we found him."

"He will consider the doorman," Teal'c agreed, slowing to a stroll and clasping his hands comfortably behind his back.

"He won't need to consider how we got it out of the doorman."

"No," Teal'c purred.

"Too busy obsessing how the doorman knew he was here."

Teal'c smiled.

Jack smiled too.  Days like this, it was good to be alive.

Not for his Daniel, obviously.

"You like bacon?" he asked Teal'c casually.

"I am concerned that DanielJackson does," Teal'c said darkly.

As the pig in question, Jack was hoping so, yes.

When they finally emerged from the Chinook, a hundred bucks or so lighter in the wallet, Daniel was planted outside the entrance to Acacia Park, surrounded by bags of books, acting like he didn't know either of these weird losers, even though he was waiting for them and they were headed right for him.

"A+ for effort," Jack remarked judiciously.

"We must take DanielJackson to a location in which he feels secure," Teal'c advised.

"Not too secure," Jack cautioned.  "He makes the average clam look chatty."

"Then perhaps a location in which we feel secure," Teal'c amended.  "I have observed that DanielJackson is adversely affected by consumption of alcoholic beverages."

"Get him drunk?"  Jack completely failed to react with the proper moral shock and horror.  "He's a cheap date."

Teal'c glanced down significantly at Jack's purchases.

"He likes books," Jack explained glibly, feeling it wasn't in the public interest to announce that if Daniel wanted to take the 'Men are pigs' book home, he'd be buying his own copy.  He hefted the bag of books and did his 'we come in peace' thing.

"Fruit!" Daniel fired at them.

"Homophobe!" a scathing feminine voice spat.

Daniel started violently and spun around, amazed to find himself confronted by an aggressive young earth-mother in dungarees, with a café latte, a Dalmatian on steroids and a gurgling Gap baby strapped to her chest.  "Your objectionable assumption of pejorative intent in my comment argues - oh."  The fascinated baby squealed and made a grab for Daniel's glasses.  Daniel attempted to fend her off, which left her in possession of both his hands.  The Dalmatian started sniffing him.  "Um."

Jack had no difficulty in translating this to 'Jack!  Help!'

"The infant shows promise," Teal'c commented as the baby pulled two of Daniel's fingers into her mouth and started to suck.

"Bananas!" Jack called helpfully to the apoplectic, thwarted mom as he ambled over to pet the dog and extricate the archaeologist.  "Apples.  Peaches.  Fruit."

Mom mouthed a word which wasn't nice, apparently blaming Daniel for making her embarrass herself in front of three complete strangers, plucked away the indignantly protesting baby and marched off, curtly calling the dog to heel before Jack could stroke it.

"Bitch," Jack commented before she was out of earshot.

"The dog too," Daniel snapped, shaking his drooly fingers.

"Well," Jack said heartily, looking significantly around at Teal'c.  "I don't know about anyone else."  They began to gather up the scattered spoils of Daniel's sojourn in the Chinook.  Hostages, as it were.  "But after that charming reminder of what we're risking our asses for every day, I need a drink.  A stiff one."

Daniel shot him a reproachful look and sidled closer.  "That's hardly fair," he hissed discreetly.  "Teal'c has a drinking problem!"

"He does?"  Apparently, this came as news to Teal'c too.  They both looked interestedly at Daniel.

"It would be more accurate to say he doesn't.  Drink, that is."

"To be fair," Jack pointed out scrupulously, tucking his hand neatly into the crook of Daniel's elbow as Teal'c closed in smoothly from the left.  "Neither do you."

"Why don't you just snap some of those plastic cuffs on me?" Daniel demanded witheringly as they gently escorted him away from the park entrance.

"We did not bring any."

"Not that we would," Jack interjected hastily if not entirely convincingly.  Frankly, he was wondering why this had never occurred to him before.  In strictly pragmatic terms…Then again, maybe a more humane option would be one of those leashes moms put on their - He caught Daniel's outraged eye.  Or, er, maybe not.

"I'd love to believe this was out of character," Daniel mumbled, mostly to himself.  "I'd really love to."

Teal'c patted him fondly on the arm.

"Whatever stirs your coffee, Danny," Jack suggested sympathetically.   
    
    


 

* * *

  
  


"This is not a bar!" Jack hissed indignantly.  "It's a parlour!"

"You picked it."

"It is most comfortable."

"That's not the point!"

"It has bookcases," Daniel approvingly pointed out a significant entry on the 'plus' tab.  "No Readers Digest editions, either."

"It has nooks," Jack insisted scathingly.

"I know.  You loomed over those poor office-types glowering until they vacated this one."

"It's the one that gets the sun," Jack explained.

"I'd rather have had one with a bigger couch," Daniel complained mildly, feeling that if his friends were crowded any closer, he'd be in their laps.  He took a sip or two of his rather nice red wine, lazily leaned his head against the back of the couch, closed his eyes, sipped some more and let the sun soak into him.

"Are you alright, DanielJackson?" Teal'c enquired solicitously.

"Mmm-hmm."

"Do you think that men are pigs?"

"And more importantly, do you like bacon?"

"I like books."

"Understood."

"I love research."

"Point very much taken.  And now, getting back to bacon?"

"Do either of you have a problem with that?"

"Research?"

"Bacon."

"Don't ask.  I can't tell."

"Murray?"

"I was bred to serve."

Daniel opened his eyes and sat up, turning to Teal'c.  "Yes?" he invited gently.

"My 'god'," Teal'c spat venomously, "Forbade such practices.  A man was taught to measure his honour and his worth in his service to his god and in his family."

"It's not all that different here," Jack said dryly.

"The man's family was also bred to serve," Daniel suggested.  "It's one of societal controls the Goa'uld relied on."

"I know this," Teal'c said softly.  "I have not thrown off all the teachings of my youth.  I am still Jaffa."

"And those forbidden practices still go on," Jack interjected.

"They do," Teal'c acknowledged.  "Our 'god' was vengeful."

"Our Uniform Code of Military Justice isn't exactly big on the forgiveness thing."

"I went to UCLA when I was sixteen."

"Okaaay," Jack acknowledged after a judicious pause.  "As far as learning curves go, I think we have to give him that one, big guy."

"I concur."

"What's your personal belief?" Daniel carefully asked Teal'c.

"I wanted all that my father had lost."

"Strictly meat and potatoes, huh?"  Jack paused.  "I mean, you never even entertained the possibility," he amended carefully.

"Did you?" Teal'c retorted.

"Not in the lifetime commitment sense, no.  But I was once young, dumb and full of-"

"Thank you, Jack," Daniel interrupted crisply.

"There was great stigma, O'Neill, even among the ranks of the lowliest Jaffa warriors.  A man who would permit another such an intimacy was no man."

Daniel leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.  He stared into his wine glass, cupped between his palms, watching the sunlight dance on the vivid liquid as he slowly swirled the wine.  "It's a common theme in ancient Greek, Egyptian and Arab cultures among others.  Sexuality was restrictive, not hedonistic, structured around reinforcing male power and the expression of that sexuality was a means of asserting control.  In Ancient Greek culture men distanced themselves from any act or behaviour that feminised them; they were required to assert their masculinity by dominating others, women, men, youths.  For two men?"  He shrugged.

"It is as you say, DanielJackson."  Teal'c too sat forward, folding his hands neatly.

Jack immediately took the opportunity to indulge himself in another back rub.  He seemed to have this thing about the small of Daniel's back.  The man couldn't leave it alone.

"If this was more than research?" Daniel asked straight-forwardly, knowing that ultimately it wouldn't affect the choices he and Jack made, except perhaps to add an edge they hadn't looked for to an already difficult burden of secrecy if they did commit themselves to a relationship.  Also to how Daniel at least thought of Teal'c.  He was more aware than most that understanding could never be reached if you judged a culture alien to you by the familiar standards of your own.  Knowing this didn't make it any easier for him to put it into practice.

"I have learned much and questioned more since I joined you, DanielJackson" Teal'c said softly.  "And we are brothers."


	8. Part Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slash: Jack and Daniel involved in a loving and committed relationship, which usually involves sex.  
> Rating: NC-17  
> Category: Angst. Drama. First Time. Friendship. Hurt/Comfort.  
> Season/Spoilers: Season 5. Spoilers for Seasons 1-5. Politics. Need. Legacy. Shades of Grey. Divide & Conquer. Failsafe. Menace. The Sentinel.  
> Synopsis: When Daniel's belief in himself and his place in the team are shaken to the core, can Jack help him find his true voice again?  
> Warnings: Angst and ambiguity make this quite dark in tone.

"I feel like I should apologise," Jack suggested, glancing across at Daniel, who was holding his face where the breeze from the open truck window could play over his skin.  "Teal'c said something, back in the bookstore, about being concerned.  I guess I didn't pay sufficient attention."

"It's okay," Daniel assured him, turning a little.

His sweet, dreamy smile made Jack's heart skip a beat.  Always.  He wanted to blurt out something stupid, like 'I love you', but instead he just smiled back and kept on trucking.

"You doing better?" he asked, a few minutes closer to town in which Daniel had nothing in particular to say.  He felt restless.  Buying Daniel dinner would be fun, but he didn't want to share.  His house felt too small, too confrontational a space if Daniel didn't want to go to bed with him.  Dropping the big guy off back at the mountain had given Jack the idea to grab some food on the hoof and just keep driving.  Take the road to nowhere.  "Daniel?"

"I don't know."

The honesty of the answer surprised Jack.

"I'm thinking clearer," Daniel admitted, kind of surprised by this.  Exhaustion and alcohol should have dulled his senses, not sharpened them.

"Seeing more problems?" Jack asked, concerned.  "Again with the smile!" he complained, grinning.  "Driving, here!"

Daniel's head dropped.  "Jaaaack," he protested half-heartedly.  Then he snapped upright as Jack slowed the truck.  "Jack!  You have got to be kidding!  This is a McDonald's Drive Thru!"

"I said I'd buy you dinner," Jack argued mendaciously.

"McDonald's?  Cheap, O'Neill, very cheap," Daniel sniffed.

"Daniel!  Was that a pet name?" Jack gloated, beaming.

"No," Daniel snapped, flushing.

"You're a cute drunk, Doctor Jackson," Jack observed happily as he cruised past the playground.

"I'm not drunk," Daniel argued with great dignity, his eyes dwelling on the swings.

Jack instantly decided on a nice evening drive out to Crystola.  Chipita Park had a really cool park with swings.

"I only had one glass of wine."

"Two."

"Oh.  Well, what are the odds of you trying to take advantage of me later?"

"Why don't you rewind that last sentence and tell me if you'd say that completely sober?"

"Why don't you just answer the question?"

"Four Big Macs, four large fries, four large Cokes, diet, and four hot fudge sundaes.  What are the toys in the Happy Meals?"

There was some sputtering, hissing, crackling with the odd syllable intermingled here and there.

"We'll take four," Jack decided.  "Make sure the toys are different!"

Daniel was looking at him.

"We may need to bribe the kids."

Daniel was still looking at him.

"Or I could just intimidate them."

It seemed like a good idea to drive though.  Daniel wasn't that drunk.  He would ask what kids, they'd get into the whole Air Force colonels-and-swings thing, which would lead to the collectibles issue.  Jack had more than a decade's worth of National Geographic in his closet.  He had Teeny Beany Babies and Hot Wheels Barbie.  Daniel was never going to be that drunk.

McDonalds held your food hostage until after you handed over the cash and then made it impossible for you to complain about whatever crap they doled out to you at the other end because no one was going to drive through the Drive Thru twice.  Corporate America at its best.

Daniel had the toys out of the Happy Meals before Jack had the truck out of the Drive Thru and calmly appropriated the Invisible Visible Spy Pen and the Motion Detector.  Then he started eating the fudge sundaes.

"I don't want to jump your bones that much, you know," Jack complained darkly as he headed for the I-24.

"I think you do."

"Do you think you want me to?"

"I don't know."

"You seemed to enjoy our little tête-à-tête in my office this morning."

"You turn me on, Jack, you know you do."

"You just need more time to get used to the fact I do?"

"You're a pushy sonovabitch," Daniel observed fondly.

"If I was pushy, I'd be asking if you want to pull over somewhere and make-out with me."  For that, Jack would be willing to forego the swings.

"I want to pull over somewhere."

"And make-out?"

"Talk, I thought."

"I'll take what I can get," Jack agreed promptly.  There were a lot of minor roads leading off the I-24, nature trails and the like.  Most people headed East to the picnic grounds, so he headed West, wondering what it would take to get Daniel to behave inappropriately with him on the backseat of his truck.

"What would you like to do?" Daniel asked somewhat obscurely.  "Sex, I mean.  How would you like to have sex?  With me.  I read some stuff."  He trailed off uncertainly.

The back seat was littered with the stuff Daniel had been reading about sex.

"Honestly?  I'd love to masturbate you, right here in the truck."

"Oh."

"You wouldn't even have to undress."

"I see."

"Just lie back, kiss me a whole lot and enjoy it.  I'd offer to go down on you, but my back won't take it, not in the truck, and I really, really want to watch you enjoying sex.  I want to watch you come."

"You're turning me on."

"I presumed that's what you-"

"Yes.  No.  I was actually just trying to fill in the time until we could talk properly but you - you're-"

"Turning you on?"

"I like it."

When Jack glanced around, Daniel was smiling again, his eyes very shy.

"I like pushing."

"You like me," Jack said smugly.

"I love you."

Jack stopped the truck right then, cursing his stupid shaking hands and the clumsy slither as the wheels hit grass.  He had the presence of mind to get out of his seatbelt and toss the ice cream before he yanked Daniel into his arms.

"You pick your times, Jackson," he growled, and then he kissed him hard, fierce in his relief.  Daniel's lips were cool and sweet with caramel, chilled fingers curling around Jack's neck, sending shivers down his spine.  "You know I love you," he whispered.  "You know."

Hardly able to believe his own capitulation, Daniel put his arms around Jack and kissed him passionately, shaking but still pushing at the same time.  He moaned low in his throat when Jack began to suck on his tongue, slowing and deepening their kiss with such blatant sensuality, it drove all thought from his mind.  He held onto Jack for dear life, enjoying the sensation of Jack's lips rubbing over his, the silken slide of softly savouring tongues.  He liked this more and more, and he wanted it.  For himself.  Not just because he loved Jack.

He loved Jack.

When they broke apart Daniel swung around and jumped out of the truck, striding out into the trees without looking back, emotion burning in his chest, choking him and driving him forward.  Jack caught him up after a very few minutes, slid an arm around him and slowed him down.  He said nothing when he felt Daniel's tremors, he just walked.

"I decided some things," Daniel told him at last.

"So tell me," Jack invited.

"This is very difficult.  For all of us, I guess," Daniel said haltingly, slowing his pace.  "We're all learning that we're not wholly the people we thought we were."  He took some time to frame his thoughts, grateful for Jack's patience.  "I've been forced to question myself and a lot of my assumptions about who I am.  That's sometimes a good thing, sometimes not.  I'm still not sure which this is.  Part of me feels like Mirin was a wall, but also that it was one I was going to hit sooner or later."

"It doesn't have only you thinking and feeling that way," Jack said soberly.

"I know," Daniel agreed, with a fleeting touch to Jack's hand.  "I guess I have my own set of rules.  I've needed them," he added woodenly.  Some things he wasn't prepared to talk about.  Maybe some day.  Maybe.  In the meantime, he would give the only explanation he could.  "I've never known quite where I fit in.  I didn't fit the rules surrounding me."

"Walling you in?" Jack interjected, surprisingly empathetic.  "So you made your rules fit you.  If it helps, you're a principled man, Daniel.   Your rules, sometimes they fit me too.  They fit a lot of people, more than you know."

"Er."

Jack gave him an encouraging squeeze.  "Let it go for now.  Your self-image has taken enough of a  beating for one day.  Rules?" he prompted.

"You don't hurt people."

Jack's steady pace faltered, his comforting hand suddenly clenching at Daniel' waist.  "I so don't want to know where that one came from, do I?"

"Disappointment, mostly," Daniel said, surprising himself.  "I really can't explain this.  If I could, maybe it wouldn't have become such a big part of who I am.  Who I think I am.  Thought."  He could feel his arms beginning their comforting slide but let it happen.  He was tired of hiding.  "Not hurting other people, it got twisted, Jack.  I let them hurt me.  It's not noble suffering martyrdom or a twisted masochistic ego trip.  It's not conscious.  It's not about me."  He was frustrated that he still couldn't encompass this, let alone express it.  "Why can I do it for you, or for Sam, or for someone we meet out there, for the truth or what I arrogantly deem to be the greater good?  Why can't I do it for me?"

"You're losing me, here."

"Devil's advocate," Daniel responded in a rush.  "Isn't that my role on the team?  Effectively, I'm there to be the voice of dissent, the constant, constructive reminder that our purpose is to communicate, to mediate.  You have a conscience, you have principles, but you also have orders.  I'm there not necessarily to give voice to my conscience but to yours."  He was, he felt, a difficult necessity.  "You may not agree with most of what I say but you need me there to say it, you need the action you take to be challenged, because ultimately our duty is to find the better way," he argued passionately.  "In compromising myself I compromised you, and Sam and Teal'c.  No more.  I have to face that I'll always be on the outside looking in, because although ultimately my role is one of respect, to defend you and the team, in my methods - questioning - dissent - I antagonise.  How can I not?"

"Readers Digest version?"

"I'm too passive."

"Passive?" Jack echoed incredulously.  "Did you actually hear anything you just said?  Try passionate!"

"Not about myself."

"Ah," Jack said softly.  "I see."

"Do you?" Daniel smiled humourlessly.  "Because I'm damned if I do.  I'm so far from who I was, it scares me, Jack," he admitted painfully.  "I didn't let it happen.  I didn't know.  I didn't even see it." He shivered then, rubbing his arms reflexively.  "And then - Mirin.  It's like what you said to me, before.  Everything was stripped away and I realised I don't defend myself.  I can't give myself the respect I give you."

"I realised different stuff about myself, Daniel," Jack explained, needing to answer the stark look in Daniel's eyes.  "But it wasn't any easier on me to have to face it.  I took a good hard look at my cesspool of a psyche and all I found were reasons for you not to be with me."

"Jack!" Daniel exclaimed distressfully.

"Is this why you told me you love me?" Jack asked as gently as he could.  "Trying to find your own voice again?"  Daniel's whole weight leaned into Jack as he reached up to clasp Jack's jaw and turn his face, and just look at him.  Nothing more.  Just a hurting, hopeful look that said - and asked -everything.  A soft look, and trusting.  Daniel was with him.

"That's what I was doing in the Chinook," Daniel confided.  "I wanted so much to take the bull by the balls.  For once."

"Do you mean horns?"

"I mean balls."

"I think I'm flattered."

"I have no idea where we're going, Jack, or how much I'm ready for.  When you look at me, I see you remembering and I remember too, how you feel inside me.  I'm so embarrassed," Daniel admitted in a stifled tone, looking down at the lush, flower-studded spring grasses as they walked.

"Turned on?" Jack asked, still gently.

"The best sex.  With a man."

"With me," Jack corrected, smiling as Daniel stopped and impulsively stepped in front of him.  His smile widened when Daniel's hands clasped his waist, mostly because Daniel didn't seem to notice.  Jack was just there, in front of him, so he reached out.  It felt good.

"All I wanted was to be close to you, Jack," Daniel confessed, looking kind of shamefaced at his sappiness.  "It's all I ever seem to want.  For myself, anyway.  Just you."

Daniel was so sweet when he was this serious, his brow furrowed in concentration and his beautiful blue eyes intense and appealing.  Jack reached out to curl his hands around Daniel's throat, stroking his thumbs delicately over the warm, smooth skin.  He was pleased when Daniel didn't move away from his touch.

"No one gets to me the way you do, Jack."

"And?" Jack prompted.

"I want more."

"That's fair," Jack promised.  "That's real, Daniel."

Daniel kissed him, still very serious.  Not a sexy kiss, but warm.  A soft sigh sounded, then Daniel scrubbed his cheek against Jack's and rested his face against his shoulder.

"I've never really had dreams for myself," he murmured, stroking Jack's back.  "I've never - fit - before.  Real is all I know," he said matter-of-factly.  "You wanted me and I couldn't see anyway for us not to be together."

"I don't follow."

"Passive," Daniel lifted his head, frowning impatiently.

"Ah," Jack said meekly, slipping his fingers into Daniel's hair and urging him back.  "Hence the bull's balls."

"I want to be more than turned on when we make love again," Daniel said firmly, kissing Jack's throat.  "I want to be comfortable."

"That’s - real," Jack sighed, trying to take his meagre crumb of comfort from the 'when', not if.

"I want a lot of things."  Daniel found he was smiling and was glad to hear his own quiet certainty.  "They're all real."

"Stop!" Jack groaned theatrically.  "I'm tearing up, here."

"I'm going to talk to Sam tomorrow.  And to General Hammond.  I'd like you to be there for that?"

Jack murmured easy agreement, but he was thinking furiously, trying to fathom quite what it was Daniel had in mind.

"I want Sam to take that position the general offered her, at least for a while," Daniel admitted with difficulty.

Okaaay.  Jack hadn't expected that.  That was Daniel finding his voice with a vengeance.

"I want us to agree, Sam and I.  I hope we can.  That's why I want to talk.  We can agree," Daniel said again.

Jack guessed Daniel's uncertainty about this was reason enough for him and Carter to really need that talk.  And he had to admit that he wasn't sure Daniel and Carter could agree either.  Neither of them was seeing themselves all that clearly, let alone each other.  All they knew were the problems.  Carter didn't want to be off the team, Daniel didn't want to be responsible for Carter being off  the - Jack pulled up short on that thought.  That was exactly what Daniel was doing.  Taking responsibility.

"I think General Hammond knows I need to do this.  I think he knew before I did, Jack.  We talked today and - I guess I'm not ready to work with Sam again.  Not right now.  I do need to tell her that I take some of the blame for what happened because I accepted what was happening with the team."

"Passive?" Jack winced.

"Isn't that what you told me?  You and Teal'c?" Daniel reminded him.  "That I made it easy for you to ignore my needs?  I'm finally hearing you.  Hearing myself," he amended self-consciously.

Jack tilted Daniel's chin and kissed him tenderly.

"I've compromised too much of myself, for you, for Sam, for everyone," Daniel whispered painfully.  "I can't do it anymore.  I just can't.  I need a break.  Sam needed my help today and I offered without thinking of the consequences.  It was what she wanted, that was what mattered to me.  I didn't know what I wanted.  I still don't.  I'm desperately sorry that she's the one who has to make way, that she'll be hurt by this, but I did promise to help her to stay with the team and-" He looked up helplessly at Jack.  "I need to work through all this confusion."

"Tough love," Jack said understandingly.  "You both need to get your heads straight," he insisted, feeling the point needed to be made.  "I think we all do.  Hammond was right, as he so often is.  Carter will do a damned good job getting that team off the ground while the big guy and I baby-sit you while you do what it is you do."

"Careful, Jack."  Daniel held up an admonishing finger.  "Very careful."

"Does the meek, submissive look turn you on?  I'm not proud."

"No."

"I expect you to hit those books pretty damned hard."

"Can we focus here?"

"Daniel, I swear, I could not be more focused."

"On Sam!"

"Better to take a necessary step back from it now while the two of you work to gain some perspective and rebuild some trust than to risk losing Carter permanently," Jack recapped fluently.

"You think so?" Daniel asked hopefully.

"Would it change your mind?"

"No."

"Then, I think so."

"I need Sam and I think she needs me.  We'll get back to that place."

"Is that a promise?"

"I can promise to try."

"That's as real as it comes, Jackson."

"Pet name?"

"Depends on whether or not you like it."

"I think I do."

"I'm saying Jackson, but I'm thinking baby," Jack remarked pleasantly, turning Daniel around so they could stroll back to the truck, glad he could lighten the mood somewhat.  He was still kind of stunned how fast all of this had happened, which he figured hammered home how right Daniel was.  He was not this fearless about himself.  Daniel hadn't been able to explain well, and Jack frankly hadn't gotten a lot of the stuff he'd stumbled through, but he was with his love on the essentials.  For maybe the first time in his life, Daniel really, really needed someone to lean on.  He couldn't do this on his own.  He needed Jack and he was going to have him, not just looking out for him, but challenging him.  Because Jack loved him.

"I'm not eating that food," Daniel warned him.  "The fish will be colder than the ice cream now."

"Fish?  I ordered burgers!"

"Three filet o' fish."

"Four burgers!"

"You can cook me dinner," Daniel offered.

"I didn't want to take you to my place," Jack said unthinkingly, brooding vindictively over Ronald-related revenge.

"You didn't?"

"Er, no."

"Jack," Daniel said warningly.

"I didn't think it would help anything for me to be chasing you round my bedroom."

"I was planning to just walk in under my own steam," Daniel said boldly, colouring as Jack did a double-take.  "I mean, when I - er - feel."  He cleared his throat nervously.

"Comfortable?" Jack suggested sympathetically.

Daniel nodded gratefully.  "I, er, I can't think of a better way to get comfortable with you than - you know, being with you.  I was thinking."  He was blushing.  "What you were saying.  In the truck," he elaborated, possibly unnecessarily, knowing Jack.  "We could try that.  Some time."

Jack hugged him quite hard and kissed his ear, which he guessed meant Jack was up for some time any time.

"I've got a reading lamp, you know," Jack confided.

"You do?"

"Next to my pillow.  Want to come up and read something some time?"

"Um."

"You know how to read, don't you?  Just put your l-"

Daniel smacked his hand over Jack's mouth.  "Are you trying to walk me into a sunset, here, you sappy sonovabitch?" he demanded.

Jack took Daniel's hand and kissed his palm.  "We're parked this way," he explained carefully.

"West."

"We drove West."

"Into the sunset."

Jack didn't feel he could deny this.  The world had already turned on its axis once for him tonight.  Twice would be pushing it.  "I just wanted to get you into the middle of nowhere so I could molest you without senseless interruption."

"Beneath a glorious Technicolor sunset."

"It's not like I'm holding your hand, Daniel.  Or your ass.  Not only did I not get to molest to you, I haven't even gone down on one knee."

"One what?"

"Knee.  Not that I technically need to ask for your hand in marriage or indeed any other part of you.  You're mine.  All of you.  All mine."

"Wh-wh-what?" Daniel stammered, struggling to change mental gears.

"You already said yes," Jack reminded Daniel smugly

"Oh, come on Jack, you can’t possibly hold me to that!  It's-it's ridiculous!" Daniel exclaimed.

"Would it be tactless to ask Carter to be a bridesmaid?" Jack mused airily.

"It would be-"  Words for what it would be failed Daniel.  Utterly.  His vocabulary - in twenty-three languages - simply wasn't up to the task of adequately describing what it would be.  It was - it was - "Jack!"

"You don't expect me to live in sin, do you?  And me a good lapsed Catholic boy?"

"Jack!"

"We owe it to Teal'c to do the honourable thing.  The big guy has Issues, you know.  You heard him!"

"Jack!"

"Any thoughts on the reception?  On-world?  Or off?  Do you think the Asgard cater?"

"Do you think we'll ever have a serious conversation where we don't get into one of these stupid pissing contests?"

"Now, you're dreaming."  Jack shook his head sadly at this evidence of Daniel's tragic naïveté.  "We don't have serious conversations, Jackson.  We're only having this one because I thought I was getting some at the end of it."

"Jack?"

"Daniel?"

"That's too real."

FINIS.


End file.
